This is the fourth post in my series sharing some of my favourite poetry book boxes. Book boxes are all made from found objects, with the intention that the materials and process of creation add another layer of meaning to the words themselves. Everything is a metaphor. Get Out and Walk is a diorama featuring a mirror image city painted on a black velvet box, with a scene inside made of leaf boats, cut-out people, a watercolour and ink landscape, and a line from a poem called Statistics for the Social Sciences.
I wrote the poem during my clinical psychology training, which made very little space for lived experience of mental health challenges and what the service-user movement might bring to our profession. I had such high hopes for what I might be able to help shift if I joined these systems. But the bureaucracy is too big to shift and most of the people within it are too oppressed by their own system to stand beside those who try. I'm now happily ensconced in my own private practice where I am once again free to be a voice for human rights, quietly walking my talk and modeling a different way.
Never underestimate the power you hold as an outsider.
**Statistics for the Social Sciences **
I had this idea I could join the system
and change it from the inside
but you can’t join the system
and not join the system.
You’ve got to put
your best foot forward
do not rock the boat
well rock the boat a little
but not much
don’t tip the boat
don’t ask anyone to build a new one
do not redesign the boat
definitely don’t point out
hey the ocean isn’t deep here at all
and we could walk
if we don’t mind getting our knees wet.
Do not let your knees get wet.
If your knees get wet keep it to yourself
we don’t talk about the wetness of the water here
we study the motion of the wave
the molecular structure, the parts
their correlation to the shore and the clouds
and the rain and the temperature
we do not talk about the feel of it
there are names for speaking of the feel of it
unboundaried/anecdotal/bias.
I am full of bias in a boat
of balanced, nodding quiet
swallowing my reactions back like stones.
Feelings are things we study
not things we have out in the open
we are individuals
our perspectives are invalid
your single-n sample study lacks
generalisability
see that’s just your opinion there
it only counts
when a majority agrees with you.
In statistics, one is insignificant
one has no power
one is an outlier
outliers get trimmed off
we are afraid of being outliers
so we become swallows instead.
A crowd of silent swallows
billowing out across the sky
and our feet, our knees
are perfectly dry.
An earlier version of this poem was first published on the Mad in America website in 2018. If you've not seen the resources over at Mad in America, I highly recommend checking them out. https://www.madinamerica.com/2018/08/statistics-social-sciences-miriam-barr/
[Photos by me]
[Edit: added the words 'most of' - there are some good cogs in that machine who are doing their best.]