Casey Sara Smith, PhD

Put a pinwheel on my grave

Please.

One with rainbow colors that glitter in the light.

Put a pinwheel on my grave and let it dance

In the fluffy spring breeze

And be covered with snow in the winter.

Let the leaves fall around it in the golden autumn

As time passes

Watery and dewy and thin.

Put a pinwheel on my grave so that when children

Pass by at dusk they smile and laugh

Maybe

Like blades of grass

And their twinkling parents say

Don’t touch that.

While secretly wishing to pick it up

Themselves

And feel its momentum turning in their hands.

Put a pinwheel on my grave and

Maybe add a lava lamp and some tie-dyed socks

And some neon glow sticks that shimmer

At night

After the sun falls behind the sky.

Because sometimes when I stop and breathe

And live

And the quiet presses down.

And I wonder what is the point of it all.

That’s when I think

Maybe.

Maybe the pinwheel is the point.

I’m hesitant to call myself a “poet” in the traditional sense, but since I do enjoy poetry, read poetry, and write poetry, I’m not really sure why. A person who does philosophy is a philosopher. A person who writes is a writer. So I suppose I fit the bill for “poet.” I try not to over-complicate things.

Two pieces of my work have revolved around this poetic interest. In 2022, I published my first-ever article in the Ohio Valley Philosophy of Education Society’s journal, following a presentation of that work at that year’s conference. The article, “Poetry in Pre-Service Teacher Education: A Bridge between Philosophy and Practice,” is my attempt to unify my worlds and my thoughts. I quite like this article! Reflecting back on it now, maybe there’s some space for me to keep thinking about this link between philosophy of education and poetry.

I’ve published a poem of my own, as well, in a little no-name online journal called “The Font,” a journal for language teachers. How I discovered this journal, I cannot remember. I also can’t remember how I came to submit a piece of writing to it. The poem, “Wedged Underneath a Heavy Desk,” is just a small little thing that I wrote on a whim, but I’m glad it has a place to live.

This is where my PhD dissertation lives.

Looking back on this work now a couple of years out, I’m struck by the fact that I’m still so proud of it. Of course, in retrospect there are certainly things I wish I had done differently, or that I would do differently now. Overall, however, this is a work that came fully from my mind and heart and experiences, and it says exactly what I needed to say.

It’s hard to maintain a positive perspective on a work like a dissertation, I think. Like any piece of writing, it’s necessarily a snapshot of a moment in time. And the more time passes, the further removed I am from it. It’s important to remember that a dissertation is a document intended to serve a very specific role: to earn someone a PhD. That’s what this work did for me, and because of that, I don’t think I could ever look back on it with anything less than fondness, even love.

Testing…testing…

I’ve never used WordPress before. It’s actually rather confusing!

I’m going to put some of my work here, so it has a place to live out in the world.