Souvankham Thammavongsa’s poem “Theory of Writing” compares the way we write to the way we learn to get to the number 4.
We learn 2 + 2 = 4 as kids. Later, we learn we can get to 4 by other ways, including algebra and geometry. In mathematics, our concept of what we’re doing gets larger as we progress. Perhaps, the poet suggests, something similar happens in writing.
Or maybe
It’s the ways in which you know how
To get to four that is the point of writing,
What you had to learn and build, the time it took
To hold open the possibility for yourself.
I like that line about holding open possibilities for yourself. I think writing is a way to learn — to become a larger person or a larger self in a way.
One of my prejudices is that most of what should count as writing occurs outside the business of composing sentences. Naturally, I like this poem.
• Source: Souvankham Thammavongsa’s “Theory of Writing” is at Poetry Daily:
https://poems.com/poem/theory-of-writing/
Thammavongsa was known as a poet before she published a collection of short stories. Stunned by the stories, I’ve been looking at her poems.
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