The Poem I Wrote on the Last Page of My Thesis
Seven years of research. One poem.
I spent seven years on my PhD, and the last page of the thesis is a poem. Not a dedication, not an acknowledgement, a poem. I wrote it the night before I submitted, in the library where I had done most of the work, and I put it on the last page because the thesis was the thing that had to be said and the poem was the thing that was actually true.
The poem was about the way the library smelled, the way the books were arranged, the way the light came through the window in the afternoon. It was about the specific way I had become a different person in the seven years, the way the work had changed me, the way the thesis was not the thing I had written but the thing I had become.
I don't know if anyone read it. The examiners read the thesis, but I don't know if they read the last page. The poem is there anyway, the proof that the seven years were not just about the work but about the person the work made me.
I have a copy of the thesis on my shelf. The poem is on the last page, the thing that is most mine in a document that is mostly other people's ideas. The poem is the thing that is mine, the way the work was mine, the way the seven years were mine.
By Team Writory, for Writory.
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