Defying the Odds, Revisited

A few months ago, I wrote a poem of which I was rather proud. The poem is called ‘Defying the Odds’, and you can read it for free on my website. The piece was inspired by a very dear loved one, and celebrates the strength and tenacity required to succeed when all the odds seem stacked against you. It was written as a celebration of empowerment, with the hope perhaps of inspiring a similar degree of tenacity in its readers.

I still like what I wrote, and intend for it to be published in my next collection. However, conversations with various educators such as Ira Socol and Alfie Kohn have caused me to reevaluate the poem, and the messages contained therein. The piece celebrates those who are able to ‘overcome’ the odds, but, by definition, the majority of people are not able to do so. Celebrating the individual’s journey in succeeding in the face of the odds runs the risk of ignoring, or even justifying, the societal conditions which create these negative odds in the first place. We also run the risk of playing into society’s preconceptions about what it means to ‘succeed’.

Most disabled people are not Paralympians. Most people who are told by society, on the basis of tests and measurements, that they will not succeed, do not go on to live up to that society’s view of success. In this way, the tests and measurements create a self-fulfilling prophecy, and thus justify their own existence as predictive tools. The majority of people do not ‘defy the odds’. Are they any less worthy? Are they of less value than the ‘inspirational’ few who are somehow able to swim against the tide? 

Perhaps, if someone is beaten down by society, it is society’s fault, not theirs? With this in mind, I have written a new poem as a sort of rejoinder to the original piece. The new poem (below) takes elements of the original piece, and leads them in a somewhat different direction. My intention is not that this should be viewed as an improvement; rather, I hope that both poems can be read side by side, and serve as some much needed food for thought. 

Defying the Odds, Revisited 

They told her she couldn’t

and they were powerful,

so she didn’t. 

They gave her directions

which she followed

because she thought she had no choice. 

They opened the book

and they quoted statistics

and who was she to argue with experts?

The evidence favoured her failure,

they said.

What more could she do?

The world turned against her. 

She was left sad and lonely. 

And it’s their fault, 

not hers.

Joshua Seigal 

Success

Vain, of course, but I have an email folder where I

hoard people’s praise. Every nice comment, every bit

of positive feedback, gets shoved into the folder.

For me to look at when I feel down. And the higher

the status of the ones who bestow it, the more

their words shine and make me glow. I glut myself

on exaltation like a fat kid at a buffet. I roll around in it

like a hippo in slush. Yet my own mother’s words

give me reason to pause. She writes on Facebook: 

“I absolutely love this poem”. What to do? Do I 

take a screenshot and save it to the file? My mum

didn’t go to uni, left school at sixteen. What the hell

could she possibly know about the words she sees?

And she’s my own mother anyway – I may as well

have displayed a two-year-old’s finger painting

on the fridge door, for all her praise even means…

I save her words. Print them off, put them in a drawer.

My own mother –  what could possibly mean more?

And what is art for if not to say “Look at me, mum.

Here I am. Look at me. Can’t you see what I’ve done?”

Joshua Seigal