Okie Craft: An Interview with Jenny Flower
Interview conducted by Jules Packett
The Okie Craft Series focuses on the Oklahoma writing life. We interview writers across the state about their writing practice and about what it means to be part of the Oklahoma literary community.
We asked poet, former educator, and mental health professional Jenny Flower about her 2017 chapbook Education for Sale and the possibilities of poetry as protest then and now. Here’s what she said.
Education for Sale was published shortly before the 2018 statewide teacher walkout and after years of cuts, low salaries, and overcrowded classrooms. Nearly a decade later, how do you think about the book and its message? Do the poems feel rooted in that particular moment, or has their meaning changed for you?
They are rooted in my experience. Every poem in the chapbook came directly from my feelings about being a teacher: dealing with all the obstacles we had, caring for those kids so deeply, and feeling unheard and unsupported. My district was great, but the state as a whole was not supporting teachers. That still shows. We are still near the bottom in education.
The poems began as an online project during National Poetry Month. How did that project start, and how did your work come to the attention of NPR?
I knew it was National Poetry Month because I was an English teacher and a poet; I paid attention to those things. I was listening to NPR, and they announced that they would be sharing poems people sent them. I decided to try it and see what happened. It worked.
NPR asked me to read one of the poems aloud, and it was “Education for Sale.” They shared the recording. NonDoc and the Tulsa World also interviewed me. It was one of those moments you dream about as a nerdy kid.
As a teacher, I was always trying to find real audiences for my students’ work. I curated shows for them at Living Arts and helped organize an annual youth spoken-word event. My focus was bringing their writing to a larger audience. Those were always powerful moments. I wanted students to see that poetry does not have to be categorized as angsty teenage writing; there is so much more to it. I wanted them to see that you could continue doing this—and I wanted to try to do something that might make change happen.
You can write all the grants you want for your own classroom, but what do you do about the teacher next door whom you care about, or the things those students need? It is such a large issue. I had to find some way to address it.
Why was poetry your response to this crisis? Why choose a creative form rather than a more explicitly utilitarian one?
It is simply my natural response. I have written poetry since fifth grade, so it has been part of me for most of my life. Poetry was my natural inclination.
The title poem presents public education like a classified advertisement: “gently used,” “under value,” and available for “chump change.” How did the language of buying and selling become the central metaphor for the collection?
I saw teachers leaving—leaving the state and leaving the profession because they could not make it. Some were leaving the country to teach English elsewhere. Friends of mine were doing that.
There was no way our politicians did not know about the dire needs of our students, teachers, and schools, yet they chose to turn a blind eye. It was infuriating as a teacher and as a mother. It was unbelievable, but I suppose that is what we have learned to live with: living in an unbelievable world.
For me, all kids are my kids. I am looking out for every child, and I think many teachers share that feeling.
The poems were originally written within Twitter’s 140-character limit. What did that constraint teach you about compression and deciding what a poem truly needs?
I try not to speak unless I have something of value to add. When it comes down to it, you do not need many words to get a point across. I went with my heart. When a poem would not fit within 140 characters, I removed whatever was not truly necessary so the message remained and the feeling stayed intact.
Twitter also gave the poems an immediate, networked audience. Did writing in that public space affect how you approached the project?
I was not only tagging NPR. I tagged the governor at the time, state education accounts, and others I wanted to reach. I was finding the audience purposefully.
Eventually, I lost access to that account, even before Twitter as we knew it was gone. I do not know whether it was a kind of shadow ban or something else, but I could no longer get into it.
When you gathered the individually posted poems into a chapbook, how did you approach their arrangement? Did placing them together create an emotional progression or argument that was not present when they appeared one at a time?
The chapbook has three parts: “Lamentations,” “Proclamations,” and “Devotions.” I began with the lamentations because that was the overwhelming feeling: sadness about the restrictions and a sense of loss and helplessness. The proclamations are more directed toward an outward audience. The lamentations are more for teachers—the people who understand the experience.
I had no intention of making a chapbook when I began the project. But when I put the poems together and looked at them, I realized they told the story of my experience. I needed to see what I could do with that. A few people in my life encouraged me and said, “These are pretty good.” I had not really considered it before then.
Once I sat down and began going through them, the collection felt powerful. It gave me a glimmer of hope that something might actually change. I thought that if it made me feel that way, perhaps it could help other people, too.
In one poem you write, “I can’t feed my children with your thank yous and applause.” What were you trying to expose about the way society praises teachers while failing to support them materially?
You can receive pats on the back and recognition. You can win awards. But when it comes down to it, those things are not going to cut it. It is unfair to ask teachers to do that work and try to make a living on so little pay.
My children were on SoonerCare because I qualified for it as someone with a bachelor’s degree who was teaching and working full-time, yet still barely making it. I had just had a baby, and the added pressure of wondering how I was going to make it financially may have played a part in me using my voice the way I did and still do.
What can poetry do as a form of protest or public testimony that journalism, political argument, or a personal essay cannot?
Poetry goes straight to the heart. It is filtered through a space of feeling that an intellectual argument cannot always reach. When you share a poem, there is no barrier. For me, that is why poetry has power.
You have since moved from classroom teaching into mental health work. Has that transition changed the way you understand the experiences—or the version of yourself—represented in Education for Sale?
My perspective has grown. I now see, on another level, the impact of failing to fund education and failing to help families survive financially. I see the human cost. I still work with children, and now I hear the deepest and darkest elements of their experiences.
The transition has made me think not only more deeply but more broadly. My poetry began with the classroom experience, but now I write about our nation as a whole and the needs I see around me—not only Oklahoma and not only teachers.
What does it mean to you to be an Oklahoma writer? How has Oklahoma shaped your subjects and your voice?
Oklahoma has always been my home. It is where I have raised and am raising my children. It is a place I love and a place where it is impossible not to see the flaws. To write about those flaws and have people respond shows me that there are many people who care as much as I do about this state and the people in it. If we can find a way to get those people into positions of power, the world as a whole could change.
It is impossible to detach Oklahoma from who I am. That red dirt is where my roots are. It is the foundation of who I am, and I have no intention of leaving. Oklahoma is just going to have to put up with me.
Do writers have a responsibility to respond to the political conditions or injustices in the communities where they live?
If someone feels called to speak up and speak out, they have to weigh the consequences and prepare themselves for what might follow. If they understand those consequences and still feel driven—if they still feel that pull—then they absolutely have a responsibility.
But I do not think everyone can withstand the consequences. Being outspoken, especially as a woman and especially in a red state, is not always comfortable. But this is where I am. It is where I have been placed. So I know it is my responsibility.
Which writers or poets have most influenced your understanding of poetry as a form of witness and resistance?
Saul Williams and even Emily Dickinson have influenced me. Another important poet is Suheir Hammad. As a teenager, I watched Def Poetry Jam on HBO, and I heard her perform “We Spent the Fourth of July in Bed.” I was probably fifteen. I was not thinking about war or the human cost of war. But when she shared that poem on that stage, it was the most powerful and poignant piece I had ever experienced. I remember thinking, “That is what I want to do.”
At the time, I had no idea how I could possibly do that. I still try to live up to that level of beautiful power every time I share my work.
I feel honored to have had the chance to put Education for Sale into the world and, hopefully, make an impact. That was what the project was about from the beginning.
Jenny Flower is an Oklahoma poet, veteran educator, and mental health professional. Her chapbook Education for Sale: 30 Poems for Public Ed. grew from a National Poetry Month project responding to Oklahoma’s public education funding crisis. Her poetry was featured by NPR, and her work has also been covered by NonDoc and the Tulsa World. She is a mother and grandmother and continues to write about education, families, political life, and the human consequences of public policy.
