Shriek...

So those were my conference notes.

I had almost forgotten.

They appeared in disorder, on my desk.

"No matter how good you think you are at multitasking, you will not be truly focusing your attention on the speaker, who has no doubt spent hours preparing for this moment."

https://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/2016/aug/05/im-a-serious-academic-not-a-professional-instagrammer

I focused my attention on drawing escape.

No doubt.

He spent hours preparing for this moment.

How could he have planned?

HOW COULD HE HAVE PLANNED?

It appeared in the bottom right hand corner.

Shriek.

"No matter how good you think you are at multitasking, you will not be truly focusing your attention on the speaker, who has no doubt spent hours preparing for this moment."

Twitter wouldn't do.

Instagram wouldn't weigh it up.

Scratched pens captured some of its portent.

No close reading.
Only fragments.
A moment?
A collaged haphazard.

Shriek.

No serious argument would suffice.

Shriek.

For a moment it comes back to me.

Why now?

Why like this?

This is not what he meant.

No this is not what it meant at all.

Shriek.

For a moment I think of "my students".

A remark of Jesse Stommel came back to me.

"Every one of my students has a different cultural context. When we say 'My students are...', we reduce their complexity. @Jessifer #digped

— Sean Michael Morris (@slamteacher) July 14, 2016

"Student" reduces complexity.

"Context" reduces complexity.

"Culture" reduces complexity.

"Complexity" reduces complexity.

No, words just won't do...

Words will have to do.

There are so many of them - words - students...

Shriek.

Shriek says it better.

Are you truly focusing your attention now?

I, or at least "my" body is under water.

Attention switches...

from light to darkness,
from surface to depths
from fish shoals to urchin.

Attention fuses...

instinct,
unthinking flow,
imagined danger.

Shriek.

Water, waves, sunlight, clouds of bubbles, warmth, a snorkelled breath.

Are you truly focusing your attention?

We have spent hours preparing for this moment.

This is what it meant....

This is what he meant now.

WHY?

Is it so difficult to [under]stand?


Post Script.

"You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, not look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books. You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me, you shall listen to all sides and filter them from yourself."

Walt Whitman, Song of Myself