I am not a poet, but I’ve written poetry. And what I love about poetry is the space it allots to small things. Last year I decided to write a poem called “Ode to the Mundane” (ode to moss, ode to new ink pens, ode to chairs on wheels, ode to cutting toe nails). I never actually did it. Still, I think there is something there in the muck.

Every semester my students write small writings: one and only one page about anything. Each small writing must begin with an epigraph. The rest is up to them. They are posted online and asked to comment, with specificity, on one another’s writing. When I log on and read them all, I am unfailingly surprised by their honesty, the common themes that emerge, the gushing comments they leave to the other writers. Suddenly an anonymous room of students becomes a conglomeration of people with lives and interests and funny ways of phrasing things.

I’m writing a book, a project so big I sometimes feel I can’t see the trees for the forest, the clouds for the sky, these small things for the muck of life. So in a seemingly-paradoxical effort to become more fruitful, I’m taking on a side project. This is my small writing. I hope you like it.