A poem ain't gonna change the world. But learning how to create and be comfortable doing it will. Change does not come by repeating what was, but by birthing something new. Creation is a god-like act. It does not just happen. Life is busy, tiring, pressuring. It takes time and energy to carve into our schedule space for creativity. To foster this feeling, to nurture it, so it can nurture us in return and pour over other dimensions of our life and back into the world. Avoiding the social reproduction of the world requires also standing up against inertia, the masses, structural constrains. It requires some level of Courage. There is always some level of risk involved for those willing to put their head above the water to push for social change. Courage to stand up on our own against what is and what needs to change does not happen in a day. We need to learn how to be navigate our fear, work with it, keep pushing in spite of it. Standing in front of a crowd, in public, reading a poem we have created, for many is something out of our comfort zone. Pushing against our fear, one public display of creativity at a time, helps us grow in confidence. Standing on our own, yet not really alone.

To curate a space and structure some time for our students to put these ideas into practice, Alex Stoffel and I organised a poetry activity on Thursday 16 2023 as one of the teach-outs taking place at the London School of Economics during the 2023 strikes over pensions and pay​  This is how we introduced the activity to the students:

"We thought this would be a wonderful opportunity to reconnect and spend some time together outside of the regular setting. The objective is to share our frustrations and hopes for the higher education system. Everyone is invited to come (please don't hesitate to invite others!) and should bring along either poetry you have created or that others have written. The poetry doesn't have to be directly about academia; it can be related to any themes of resistance and creating a different future, individually or collectively."

The activity was completely voluntary. To help students prepare themselves and give them a boost of confidence, we organised a get-together a few days before. 

The event was a blast. As one of the participants shared on Twitter, it was truly a "magical" experience. Yes, we did drop "some nasty rhymes"  but it was also about putting ourselves out there, standing up together and inspiring each other. As another of the participants shared after the event: "Overall, it was simply one of the best things .... to be part of something much bigger than our everyday, mundane life :)"  

Because this is not something many of us had done before and in the context of the global classroom,  where many of our students face pressure regarding censorship from their home country, VISA and scholarship status, we aimed for the activity to be as inclusive as possible. We shared the following with the students prior to the event:

• "Some students may feel comfortable reading poems in public but not writing them. Some students may feel comfortable writing poems but not reading them. Strength comes from uniting our forces. For those who come to the preparatory session, we will do some matching up between writers-only and readers-only students so everyone can play a role and feel comfortable with their participation. If you can’t come for the prep session, just send Alex/I an email with the poem you would like other people to read, or saying that you volunteer to read someone else’s poem.
• Following on the previous point, we would like to more specifically address the concerns of those of you who would like to be involved but have concerns regarding being a speaker during the teach-out session on Thursday 16 because of VISA/scholarship/privacy/censorship concerns. We organise this event to inspire and support each other in believing a world with more creativity and freedom is possible. As a result, we don’t want those of you who need this strength the most to have to self-censor or feel excluded, but we also don’t want to put you in potential harm.  We brainstormed strategies to make you feel safe and as included as you feel comfortable to be. We suggest the following options:

-       The preparatory session will be in a controlled environment where we will ask participants not to take pictures/videos of other students, so everyone feels safe to join;
-       Alex, I and the students who volunteer can read the poems of the students who want to write poems anonymously;
-       I invite all students who have written poems to send them to me after the event so I can publish them as a blog post on my methodological artist blog. Those who want will be able to publish them anonymously;
-       Some students suggested coming up with masks/hats to avoid facial recognition. This would be visually very powerful, especially if a group of you do it. Please don’t feel pressured to do it, but if some of you want to organise a masked intervention you are very much welcome.
-       Whether or not you write poems, you are always welcome to join the teach-out on Thursday 16 as part of the audience."

As one of the students who contributed to the event anonymously commented: "Showing solidarity with academics during the strike actions in such creative forms is memorable. I find the teach-outs and marches very politically awakening. As an international student, it's a precious opportunity to learn how the higher education system works and how the flawed mechanism can affect academics and students. Having been living in an authoritarian context before coming to study in the UK, I haven't had any chance to join a march and protest for myself and make an appeal. I cherish expressing solidarity with you all."

Below are the poems of the students who volunteered to share them on the blog-post. Some of the poems come with a bit of context (at the end of the poem) that the students wanted to share with us, for example when the poem is centred around a specific reference to LSE or their experience.

I hope you'll enjoy reading the poems and participating in this creative journey as much as we did 😍​

By Audrey Alejandro, the Methodological Artist
Here is the video of me reciting the poem the day of the event. Thank you Pilar Elizalde for the recording.

Once upon a time in a land far way
In the wild I was born.

Through the earth, through the air,
Through the shadows, through the sea
Life and work got me here, in the intellectual concrete
Some call L.S.E.

Hired I became. Cooking for my students
Prepar-ing for them my wee-kly potion:
1 Litre of analytical wit to sharpen the mind
1 cup of courage to help grow a strong spine
1 spoon of unknown for the imagination
A few words of magic for the transformation
How sweet is the taste of the witchy witch poison.

I’m cooking, I’m cooking 
… but something‘s going on.
Do you hear anything?
Let me pay attention.
A mutter in the sky, a murmur in my heart.
I hear a word: despair.
Where is it coming from?

Thousands of admin files laced in regulations. They shriek.
Neo-liberal eyes, red and dull, modern abomination. They speak:

“Her ideas are quite weird 
She doesn’t brush her hair.
She wears too much colour. 
She won’t go anywhere.”

Witch-hunters in disguise. They come.
They try to hunt me down.
But what did I expect?
I signed my name in the book of the beast after all, didn’t I?
Dehumanisation monster, factory for the mind,
All that for my pay-check.
Life undead, depletion, exhaustion spells.
Where can I go for help?

I look inside.
Sekhmet, Hecate, Chhinnamasta, Cerridwen.
Goddess of wisdom and change.
We call upon you, 
I the crazy weird witch and the children of the new.
Give us courage. Give us strength.
Show us the path and guide us through.

Silence. Then the goddess softly says:
“Rise poets. Rise.
Rise from these dreadful ashes. 
I bless a reform for this institution.
Consume none. Provoke many.
Rise into the brave inspiring adults you were always meant to be.”

By Miyuki Shiraki

Beaver the weaver
See her build and burrow
Strong-willed and thorough
Thrilled to claim space
As if there’s no tomorrow

Meagre branches
See her
She dances
Bring the twig
Tease her
She advances
Mapping margins
Stacking in the gardens
Hard work pays off
Believe her
She’s Beaver the believer

Then
In the Eden
Where the beaver is eager
Time stops
A sudden seizure
Crime stomps
​On her future
The beaver feels weaker
Annoyed and devoid
With a void deployed

Delusional is the institutional
Imputable, not excusable
Today, a long wait
The days elongate
It’s like an endless hike
This current strike
Casualisation, pay gaps, and withdrawing from Stonewall
Deceiver, can’t you see her?
Why leave her?
Keep her,
Beaver the believer

“To know the causes of things”
You know what dramas that bring,
Deceiver, you leave her
Beaver and the teacher
Teach her, the creature,
​Beaver the believer
To be the achiever

Context: The beaver is LSE mascot. The poem uses the beaver as a metaphor to express what it feels like to be a willing and hardworking students in the current system.

by Walter Schutjens

And the men who hold high places 
Must be the ones who start 
To mould a new reality 
Closer to the heart 
 
But now high places have high salaries 
And thus think themselves apart 
These high places are these glass towers 
That grow further from the heart 
 
LSE's founders forged into much older stained glass 
And thus, unto us impart  
A demand for social justice through knowledge 
Made directly from the heart 
 
Knowledge derived from knowing the cause of things 
our motto: Rerum cognoscere causas if you're smart 
Knowledge of real working conditions 
Using both our heads and heart 
 
To move away from this progressive political legacy 
And let neoliberal technocrats freely play their corruptive part 
Would mean losing our direction and humanity 
The substance of the heart 
 
Their casual casualization of effective education  
Will force future generations to restart 
In their slow progress to freer societies 
That lie nearer to the heart 
 
This management is an affront to LSE's history 
And yet they seem to make it into their art 
To laissez fairly undermine its very foundation 
And drive stakes through this beaver’s heart 

Context: This fact may strike people as unlikely nowadays, but it is no coincidence that the same people who founded the Labour Society were also the founders of our LSE. These people were the Fabians and they inscribed in its very motto the critical dictum that it retains today: rerum cognoscere causas 'know the cause of things', this dictum is in its nature progressive at it promotes understanding of society by its roots, much like the method of the reformist socialist project they initiated in the early 20th century. In the back of the Shaw Library on the 6th floor of the Old Building one can find a stained glass window that was made on the day of LSE's opening, at the top of this modern interpretation of classical liturgy one finds the biblical dictum: 'Remould It Nearer to the Hearts Desire' - it captured the socialist social scientific project LSE was to embark on; but what has come of it when a modern LSE doesnt respect the basic workers rights of its employees. This poem is a reflection on LSE's heritage and what has changed. The first stanza is lent from the classic Rush song: 'Closer to the Heart'. 

by Gabby Unipan

​I stand alone
In a foreign country
Far from friends, family, and home
Am I alone?
I feel so far away

I find myself waiting, watching, yearning
For an unrecognizable reality,
a home, a school, a society
I have never known.

I stand alone
Grieving an experience I could have had,
Should have had.
Stolen out of my grasp
By an invisible, seemingly invincible, divisible force
We all recognize but fail to kill

It smothers us, blinds us, 
Snuffs out our senses
This force, this system
Robs our autonomy
Reduces individuality to marketability

I stand alone,
Forcibly deprioritizing the things I value most
Community, connection, creativity
In favor of my profitable qualities

I stand alone, screaming into the void,
Counteracting the commodification of my experience,
Of my labor,
Of my learning,
Of my teachers,
My classmates, my friends, my family,
My creativity.

Do you stand alone?
Will you stand with me?

by Ruth Boardman

How can it be that the very institutions given the power to educate,
Those who want to learn and strive for a better future,
Those who aim to better not only themselves but future generations,
Those aiming to create a safer and more respectful culture.
 
How can it be that those very same institutions publish research on equality,
Civil, social, economic, health, political.
Research that is used in different sectors of industry,
Leading to outcomes that twenty years ago would have been thought of as miracles.
 
How can it be that these very same institutions who cite values of integrity and diversity;
Claiming to build sustainable futures for people alike,
Leave their staff fearing for their jobs,
Causing them to strike.
 
How can it be that these very same institutions whose research leads to miracles,
Has a third of academic staff on temporary contracts who are hourly paid,
These are the academics facing job insecurity,
Unsure if they’ll be returning to work or facing the blade.
 
How can it be that these very same institutions who seek to drive positive change,
Have decided to accept a negative change in its staff’s pensions,
With a guaranteed loss in retirement incomes.
Are you not aware of this condescension?
 
How can it be that these very same institutions preaching diversity,
See ethnic, gender and disability pay gaps.
Ironically publishing papers on gaps in other industries,
Whilst falling themselves dangerously into the trap.
 
How can it be that these very same institutions,
Who myself, my friends and those who study here,
Have paid thousands of pounds to learn from your academic staff,
Are suffering due to your inability to make these inequalities disappear?
 
How can it be that these very same institutions,
Are failing their staff and students?

by Hongli Liu

Maybe we can be excellent in teaching,
But we lack the energy.
 
Maybe we always show up in class,
But we lose the passion.
 
Maybe we work endlessly to get job done,
But our time and work are not respected.
 
Maybe we understand education systems change,
But we never thought our situation would be on the margin.
 
Maybe we want to give our best to students,
But our real-life situation drains us.
 
Maybe … we are all fragile human beings,
But we have been treated like superheroes.
 
Maybe we just want to show our resistance via strike,
But nobody listens.
Or,
If anybody is listening...
 
So, we look up, where does our help come from?
Does it come from those who sit in these tall buildings?
No, our help comes from those who listen and acts upon our words.

by Macquarie
​
You say the rainbow ugly,
I see we shining in your dictionary;
You say we deviant and silly,
I see we writing down your obituary.
 
Dancing coord,
Singing pulse;
Unnamed color,
Unbuttoned coat;
You say we are nothing,
I see we are everything.
 
I see you watching,
I see you listening;
Stop raping my mother tongue,
Stop murdering my sisters young.
 
“The Child is father of the Man,”
But all you do is wear your masks deadpan;
Dude, we are making it real,
We shall bear no child to be our Achilles’ Heel;
We are the last generation,
We’ll shout that out loud on your coronation.
 
Your voice is unequivocal,
My tears are political;
Because in love I see all the possibilities,
In love, I see all the divinities.
 
I see les feuilles tombent en dansant,
Le soleil se couche en éteignant,
Le cœur se brise en saignant,
Le cheval rouge court en suant,
La mer déferle en rugissant,
La chanson finissant en continuant,
Le petit prince part en disant adieu tendrement.

by Alex Stoffel
​
My first day on a picket line,
It was cold and rainy.
A bus honked in passing,
And a friend said to me,
“Solidarity feels like you’re turning inside out.”

We spoke about teaching,
but about marking and metrics,
and a bus honked in passing.

We spoke about research,
but about submissions and citations.
while another bus honked.

Three more years on the picket,
It’s cold and rainy.
We speak about academic struggles,
about holding them,
like prized possessions,
turning inwards on ourselves.

My fourth year on the picket,
the bus drivers have won their dispute.
We speak about winning,
about turning outwards into politics.
We smile in anticipation,
As a bus honks in passing.

It’s cold and rainy,
but I say to my friend,
“Solidarity turns you inside out.”

As a student, have you ever been told that your work was “too descriptive” or that you needed to be “more analytical”? 

​Analysis is a process of transformation. Raw data and information do not have meaning per se. It is you, as researcher, who make meaning out of it, via the process of analysis.
Analysis is a creative process. What you create through analysis is a new discourse about the world, which helps people perceive the world in a different way, understand things that they did not know or did not understand before reading your research.
 
But how does it work? How does analysis make sense of the world, then?
To summarise: by bringing focus, synthesising, naming, establishing patterns and relationships that will help other people in perceiving these patterns and relationships and thus understand the world differently.
 
A good metaphor for analysis is the work of astronomers and other stargazing lovers who identified constellations. The sky is full of stars. And some people drew patterns in the sky, named these patterns and even created stories about the shapes thus formed. This way of perceiving the sky is passed down from generations to generations, taught and written in books. And people who learned them can’t help but seeing these patterns when they look at the stars.

Here are two definitions of analysis taken from methodology handbooks:
 
“Taken literally, ‘breaking up’ something complex into smaller parts and explaining the whole in terms of the properties of, and relations between, these parts” (Robson 2011: 412)
 
“The process of bringing order to the data, organizing what is there into patterns, categories and descriptive units, and looking for relationships between them; ‘interpretation’ involves attaching meaning and significance to the analysis, explaining the patterns, categories and relationships…” (Brewer 2000: 105)
 
These definitions highlight the double process involved in analytical work:
- on the one hand, the breaking down and simplification of the inherently messy social world;
- on the other hand, the building up of patterns between selected elements to produce a new (and synthetic) way of interpreting the world.
 
In practical terms, the transcription of one hour of interview can take up to 40 pages. Thus, the transcription of 10 interviews amounts to 400 pages. You need to break down your material into manageable segments, and focus on certain elements and sacrifice others, in order to find out what is the most interesting knowledge you can produce out of this data. 

Listing explicit criteria about what we need to do to produce a good analysis can help us ensure we are on tracks regarding our analytical goals.

​To sum it up:  the objective of analysis is to produce a convincing demonstration based on empirical evidence describing, explaining and interpreting a social phenomenon.
​

In the schematic ‘wheel’ below, I unpack the definition above to make explicit a series of criteria to help you produce a good analysis:

Let’s unpack further these criteria:

• Description: What is going on? Make sure you are not jumping to conclusions before describing the evidence.
• Explanation and Interpretation: The description of the empirical material is a necessary but not sufficient dimension of analytical work. The readers need you to go one step further. Depending on your research question, it might be, for example, the reasons behind the situation, the conditions of their emergence, how actors make meaning of it in context etc… You need to go beyond simply describing what is in the data and synthesise the way you interpret and explain the situation under scrutiny by linking your material to the context, existing theory and literature.
• Specific research object: Provide an answer to the research question by selecting relevant material to analyse. ONLY keep in the final project the data that is relevant for your analysis.  You have a purpose and you need to stick to it. There will be things in your data that are interesting but that don’t directly answer your research question: you have to be ruthless and sacrifice them. Pasta is very good but if you’re baking a cake, you don’t put the pasta in the cake, otherwise you miss the point by spoiling the cake. To summarise: there may be things in your data that are very interesting, but if they are outside the scope of your research project: bye bye.
• Discourse for someone else: The analysis is not a summary of your data that you write for yourself. The analysis is something you communicate to someone else. It needs to be clear and engaging. It is an argumentative exercise. You need to convince the reader. Imagine you are trying to convince someone you know when you write.
• Demonstration:​ A very good way of producing a convincing analysis is to demonstrate the rigour of your analysis. Create something that is more than generating impressions. You need to go beyond anecdotal examples and cherry-picked cases. Aim for your demonstration to be transparent and traceable so the readers can understand how you reached your interpretation. Provide a clearly articulated account of your assumptions, procedures, and steps. Aim for your demonstration to be systematic. Develop analytical strategies and procedures with steps to be followed consistently. That means that you approach all your data (all your interview transcripts, for example) with the same framework of analysis and the same questions.

 
Each of us has natural strengths and weaknesses. For example, some of us will have no problem in expressing their argument with clarity but will struggle to establish clear boundaries to their research topic. Others will provide a rich interpretation but without demonstrating how they reached these conclusions. It is important to identify which dimensions of analysis are your weaknesses or which ones you usually tend to neglect, and work on them as a priority.

This article is also available in Spanish and in Chinese.
You can download the pdf here.