Lina Krishnan
Been through high school and college
But I couldn’t read or write
Going to school was going to war
Being a teacher seemed a good place to hide
17 years telling my students: be seekers of truth
But I was the biggest liar in the room
Crossed the line, I wasn’t just cheating
Was a criminal
Looking back it was crazy
Never written a sentence
Didn’t ask for help, never told anybody
48 years in the dark
Then…“Cathy, I can’t read”
She thought I didn’t read much
Love is blind and deaf
Gave up on myself, went on “teaching”
Then our three-year-old said
“You’re not reading it like mama”
Finally got the monkey off my back
And learned to write
First thing I wrote, was a poem
Thing about poetry, you don’t have to know
A complete sentence, or write it
This poem was written using only the words that appeared in a newspaper article, turning the journalistic piece about a neo-literate into verse.
[My article source was from the BBC: http://www.bbc.com/news/stories-43700153]