I have spent enough years
watching shoes
to distrust
first impressions.
A name crosses the room.
A backpack is flung against the cinderblock wall.
A water bottle leaves its damp ring
on black marley worn pale
by entrances, exits, curtain calls,
by kings, widows, lovers, murderers,
by seventeen-year-olds
who believe tragedy lives in volume
and forty-year-olds who arrive
already acquainted
with silence.
A left heel angles toward the door.
Toes tighten
inside borrowed character shoes.
Weight gathers
along the outside of the foot,
where children first discover
that laughter
and being laughed at
arrive through the same door.
Some sounds never leave the room.
They find a surface,
turn once,
and spend years
coming back
as echoes
against the wall.
There must be some reason
the body keeps records
the mind—busy with grades, groceries,
taxes, traffic, passwords, anniversaries—
files away as finished.
Some reason
the shoulders rise
even when the room remains kind.
Some reason
the jaw, faithful as a lockbox,
finds its work again
under fluorescent tubes
buzzing overhead
with the steady indifference
of state-funded buildings.
And breath—
that ancient accomplice,
that old collaborator,
that invisible scene partner
who has crossed every border
without passport, permission,
or applause—
waits.
I have watched hundreds arrive.
Some carrying scripts
already underlined.
Some carrying talent
like contraband.
Some carrying humor
loaded
in the back of the throat,
polished by repetition,
released
the instant
a silence
turns personal.
Some carrying beauty
they haven't yet noticed
in the mirror.
And every so often—
with no music,
no revelation,
no visible sign
to anyone
who has not spent
a good part of her life
watching human beings
approach themselves—
the floor receives
its full measure.
The spine remembers
its oldest mathematics.
The ribs make room.
A voice,
patient through childhood,
through manners,
through institutions,
through every careful lesson
in becoming agreeable—
hits oxygen
and catches fire.
© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2026
Tag: Courage
The Conditions of Speech: Voice, Power, and Authorship in the Plays of Timberlake Wertenbaker
By Jill Szoo Wilson
Timberlake Wertenbaker’s dramaturgy resists the illusion that history presents itself as stable, inherited, or complete, unfolding instead across her plays as a contested field of voices, omissions, and revisions in which narration becomes inseparable from the structures of power that determine who may speak and how meaning takes shape over time.
Where Harold Pinter locates meaning in silence, allowing absence to carry emotional and psychological weight, Wertenbaker locates it within narration itself, in the act of telling and retelling, so that her theatre turns toward the question of authorship. Wertenbaker often asks who is permitted to say what happened and under what conditions that permission is granted.
In Our Country’s Good, the stage becomes a site of layered authorship in which historical reality, imposed cultural structure, and emergent subjectivity exist simultaneously. A group of transported convicts, situated within a British penal colony in Australia, rehearse and ultimately perform The Recruiting Officer (the play within the play), a text written in another century, under another regime, and for another audience. The story enters this new context as both an instrument of discipline and a potential tool of transformation.
The theatrical event, as Wertenbaker constructs it, unfolds across these overlapping frames, and the language the convicts are asked to speak carries the imprint of authority, shaped in advance by a system that has positioned them as subjects rather than speakers. In the process of rehearsal, that condition begins to shift, as the repetition of borrowed lines gives way to a more unstable and revealing dynamic in which language, though still external, becomes something that can be inhabited.
The tension of the play resides within this movement between recitation and recognition, where the act of speaking becomes a negotiation with the terms under which speech is made available. Within this structure, Liz Morden’s trajectory acquires its force as her initial refusal to speak in her own defense gives way, later in the play, to a performance of startling clarity and precision. This shift unfolds as an acquisition of voice within a system that has persistently denied her access to it.
What changes in this moment extends beyond interior feeling and into her relationship to language itself. At the beginning of the play, that language circulates around her as accusation and judgment, forming a structure in which she holds no standing, so that her silence registers as the visible consequence of exclusion.
When she takes on the language of The Recruiting Officer, the shift occurs with precision, as the words present themselves as structure, held, tested, and measured, allowing the audience to perceive their continued externality even within the act of speaking, where a reorganization begins to take place and repetition starts to function as access.
The moment derives its power from its lack of resolution. Liz occupies language provisionally, aware of its instability and its dependence upon the conditions that permit its use. Wertenbaker presents voice as something granted, shaped, and always subject to withdrawal, and the theatre becomes a space that exposes the conditions under which speech becomes possible.
Wertenbaker’s use of doubling intensifies this instability, as actors move between the roles of convicts and the characters within Farquhar’s play, collapsing distinctions between past and present, fiction and history in a way that complicates identity and requires the audience to hold multiple realities at once while witnessing how narrative is constructed, borrowed, and reframed. Through this structure, authorship reveals its dependence upon prior language, as no voice emerges in isolation and each articulation carries the imprint of what has preceded it, reinforcing the play’s central concern with the contingent nature of speech.
This concern with narrative authority deepens in The Love of the Nightingale, where Wertenbaker turns to the myth of Philomela, approaching it as a structure to be interrogated rather than preserved, within which the violence at the center of the narrative—Tereus’s assault and Philomela’s subsequent mutilation—renders the relationship between language and power brutally visible, as the removal of speech becomes literal and embodied. Within this framework, voice emerges as something that can be stripped away at the level of the body itself. Wertenbaker extends the narrative beyond that moment of rupture by introducing, through Philomele’s act of weaving her story into a tapestry, an alternative form of authorship in which image and texture assume narrative function and meaning persists within the conditions that attempt its erasure.
Procne’s position further complicates the structure of knowledge and control, as her status as both sister and queen situates her within a system of partial authority, while her understanding of events unfolds through fragments shaped by what is disclosed and what remains concealed. The emergence of truth takes the form of reconstruction rather than revelation, requiring assembly, interpretation, and response. Meaning accumulates through time, shaped by the pressures of concealment and disclosure, reinforcing Wertenbaker’s broader exploration of how narrative authority operates under constraint.
In After Darwin, the instability of voice takes on a distinctly intellectual form, as Wertenbaker shifts from the contested terrain of history and myth into the equally fraught domain of scientific authorship, where the question concerns how knowledge is produced, circulated, and revised across time. By situating Charles Darwin within an ongoing field of discourse, rather than presenting him as a singular origin point, the play reveals the extent to which even foundational ideas depend upon their reception, as each articulation of Darwin’s theory encounters response, reinterpretation, and gradual transformation through use.
This process becomes legible within the exchanges where Darwin’s language, often treated as definitive, begins to shift under the pressure of those who engage with it, so that what initially presents itself as explanation gradually registers as argument, and what carries the weight of discovery acquires a provisional quality, contingent upon the listener, the context, and the moment of its reception. Wertenbaker allows authority to disperse across the voices that surround it, revealing that knowledge emerges through sustained interaction, as statements gain or lose stability depending on how they are taken up, challenged, or extended.
The structure of the play mirrors the process it describes, as language undergoes a form of theatrical evolution shaped by variation, response, and adaptation, so that ideas, once articulated, shift in meaning as they pass between speakers. In this way, authorship relocates from the origin of the idea to its ongoing negotiation, revealing that what we recognize as knowledge depends upon the conditions under which it circulates.
Across these plays, Wertenbaker constructs a theatre of inquiry in which characters navigate systems of language that both constrain and enable them, and where meaning emerges through negotiation, so that voice remains contingent, shaped by the structures that permit or deny its expression.
If Wertenbaker’s theatre is structured around the instability of voice, then the actor’s task extends beyond the revelation of character into the precise tracking of how character forms through language, as speech is acquired, borrowed, resisted, or withheld within conditions that precede and shape the self.
Acting Wertenbaker: Language, Authorship, and the Performed Self
To perform Timberlake Wertenbaker is to enter a dramaturgical field in which character and language remain inseparable, requiring the actor to sustain psychological truth while attending to the shifting conditions through which that truth becomes expressible, so that identity emerges through speech. In Our Country’s Good, the actor must hold simultaneously the position of the convict and the role the convict learns to play, not as a static doubling but as an ongoing negotiation in which the language of The Recruiting Officer resists immediate ease in the body and must be tested, repeated, and gradually brought into use.
A Meisner-based approach grounds this process in truthful response, as the actor begins with the difficulty of speaking the text, allowing friction to remain present in rehearsal so that the formality or distance of the language becomes playable, shaping the rhythm of interaction and gradually shifting, through repetition, from imitation toward use, until the moment at which the language begins to land on the partner and the scene acquires immediacy. From a Uta Hagen perspective, the actor locates the stakes within the act of speaking itself, asking what it means to articulate words that determine one’s standing within a system, so that the objective centers on securing footing, maintaining presence, and holding position, with language functioning as the instrument through which that effort is enacted.
Liz Morden’s trajectory sharpens this problem, as her early silence operates as active engagement structured through attention, registration, and withholding. When she speaks, the actor sustains containment, allowing each word to carry weight through its placement, as the objective remains fixed on claiming space within a system that governs access and produces language that feels earned through its relation to circumstance.
In The Love of the Nightingale, the removal of speech reorganizes technique, requiring the actor to shift toward physical action, where response continues through attention to partner and environment and where intention becomes legible through gesture and stillness grounded in specific, repeatable actions. In After Darwin, the actor navigates intellectual language through objective-driven action, ensuring that each idea operates as an attempt to persuade, challenge, or defend, so that thought registers as behavior within the scene.
Across Wertenbaker’s plays, the actor tracks shifts in language as they move between borrowed, discovered, and withheld forms, with each state registering physically through changes in timing, breath, and relational focus, allowing the audience to perceive the conditions under which speech occurs. Wertenbaker’s dramaturgy presents the self as something formed, challenged, and revised through these conditions, so that performance becomes an act of sustained attention to the interplay between language and power.
Where Harold Pinter’s silences create space for what remains unspoken, Timberlake Wertenbaker’s structures reveal the mechanisms that determine who speaks, directing attention toward the conditions that make speech possible; in doing so, her dramaturgy extends theatre’s capacity to render visible the processes through which meaning, identity, and authority emerge.
This series on playwrights grows out of a larger pedagogical project currently in development for teachers, directors, and theatre students in higher education. As the project continues to take shape, each essay will be accompanied by a companion curriculum, lesson plans, dramaturgical notes, and rehearsal-based applications designed to bring these playwrights into the classroom, the studio, and the rehearsal room with both intellectual rigor and practical immediacy. Here are some other playwrights included in the series:
Sam Shepard
Lanford Wilson
Harold Pinter
David Mamet
Arthur Miller
Henrik Ibsen
Micah Sees the World
By Jill Szoo Wilson
“My superpower is not flying,” Mr. Bird squawked as he wondered where this lady hailed from. “Flying is just my thing. It’s what I do. If I had a superpower, it would be something no other bird could muster. The dogs don’t refer to their barking as super, nor do the mice think themselves superior for eating cheese.”
“Mussster?” hissed Miss Snake. “That is a big word for a bird. Got any more in there? Or was that the only big one you know?”
“Let’s get back to business,” said Dr. Chipmunk, who had a milk mustache and probably should have used a straw. “We are gathered together today to discuss the topic of young Micah’s new glasses. You see, he cannot see . . . wait a moment. I said something funny just then. Did you hear? I said, ‘You see, he cannot see!’ Ha! I don’t usually crack hilarious jokes but . . .”
“You didn’t crack one this time either, Dr. Chipmunk,” said Mr. Bird.
“Come now. Be nice,” hissed Miss Snake. “Go on, Dr. Chipmunk.”
“I will say it in a different way so we don’t all get caught up in giggles and forget the importance of the day,” Dr. Chipmunk once again overestimated his comic genius. “Young Micah was having a hard time reading his books at school and, as I overheard his brother saying to a friend, he was even beginning to have difficulty seeing the games on his XBox. So, Micah’s father had a wonderful idea, as Micah’s father is wont to do. He has decided that young Micah will get glasses.”
“Glasses?” asked Mr. Bird.
“Glasses?” asked Miss Snake.
“Yes, glasses,” answered Dr. Chipmunk.
Miss Snake rolled onto her back and looked toward the sky. “Oh my! Glasses! What a lucky boy he is! I have always wished I could wear glasses but, as you can see, my face is too small and my eyes sit too far apart. But, oh my! Glasses look so handsome on our human friends.”
Mr. Bird, reluctant to agree with Miss Snake, chimed in, “I must say, Miss Snake, you and I have something in common. Perhaps only this one thing: I, too, find the human folk look rather charming when they don glasses atop their noses. Especially the little ones. Why, glasses make the young ones look debonair, charming, and, dare I say, dashing.”
“Oh, please,” cried Miss Snake, “ssstop with the big words! And for the love of all that is good, please come to your point much quicker!”
Mr. Bird lifted his beak into the air and flapped his wings twice, too quickly to fly. “Miss Bird! I will thank you not to critique my every word! I am simply saying that glasses are quite pleasing to the eye.”
The milky-faced Chipmunk giggled. “Glasses? Pleasing to the eye? Oh, now you’ve made a joke, Mr. Bird!” Dr. Chipmunk continued giggling while Miss Snake rolled her wide-set eyes in his direction and Mr. Bird stood staring at the sky, wondering, “Why?”
Realizing he had begun to lose control of the meeting, Dr. Chipmunk cleared his throat and began again. “The problem, friends, is this: Micah feels, well, a little embarrassed about wearing his new glasses to school. He isn’t sure the other children will like them, so he is refusing to wear them.”
“Well, that is preposterous, Dr. Chipmunk!” squawked Mr. Bird. “Glasses not only look dashing, but they are also quite helpful. In fact, they offer superpowers to all who wear them. That is really quite amazing!”
Miss Snake raised the top half of her body. “Now I must agree with Mr. Bird for the second time in one day, which is certainly a record. Sure, glasses look great but they are also . . .” Miss Snake’s voice trailed off and then she whispered, “powerful.”
Dr. Chipmunk shuddered at the word itself and answered, “Both of you are right. Contained within the lenses of young Micah’s glasses is a special potion, concocted by our Greek friend, Mikanos the Mouse.” Now it was Dr. Chipmunk’s turn to whisper. “Within the potion are elements that dance together, as the Lords and Ladies once did in the great halls of the most prestigious castles, and then the dancing elements tiptoe into young Micah’s eyes, giving him the superpower of . . . seeing as far as the birds can see.”
Miss Snake rolled around on the ground while Mr. Bird flapped his wings so hard he flew straight to the tops of the trees. “Amazing!” said Mr. Bird from his leafy perch. “So, you are telling us that young Micah will be able to see far and wide? He will be able to discern all the bright colors in the world, pinpoint every detail from miles away, and see his prey in ultraviolet hues?”
“Now, now,” Dr. Chipmunk said in an effort to calm Mr. Bird. “Young Micah will not be able to see ultraviolet hues but . . .” his voice grew with excitement, “He WILL, however, be able to see far and wide! He will be able to discern all the bright colors in the world and pinpoint every detail from miles away!”
Miss Snake composed herself. “That IS a superpower, Dr. Chipmunk! You were right! The dancing elements inside young Micah’s glasses will allow him to read all the books he’s ever wanted to read and to see all the details in the world so he can draw them, or paint them, or even write about them himself!”
Mr. Bird energetically tweeted, “And what if one of our animal friends falls into trouble? Like the time Katherine the Kitten was trapped on top of the slide at the playground. Why, young Micah would be able to see that she was in need and run to help her! That IS a superpower, indeed!”
“Yes,” exclaimed Dr. Chipmunk. “Now you’ve got the idea! Young Micah’s glasses will not only make him look handsome but will also help him become a hero!”
All of the animals cheered together.
“There is only one problem,” said Dr. Chipmunk as he looked toward the ground. “Remember, young Micah doesn’t really want to wear his glasses.”
“Not wear them?” Miss Snake slithered closely to Dr. Chipmunk. “But he must! He can become a hero, and the world desperately needs heroes, Dr. Chipmunk. Don’t you agree? Young Micah has a heart of gold, and I know that if he could see all the details of the world, he would surely help lost kittens, or help his friends at school if their expressions looked sad. He may even create new things and bring more beauty to the world! What can we do to convince him?”
“I am glad you asked,” said Dr. Chipmunk before he took another drink of his milk. “I have written an itinerary for the two of you.” Then Dr. Chipmunk burped and continued, “Here is the plan! Miss Snake, I would like you to retrieve the glasses from our Greek friend, Mikanos the Mouse. He has prepared the potion, placed it into the lenses, put the lenses into the frames, and now they are ready for young Micah to wear. All you need to do is pick them up. Can you do that?”
Miss Snake squinted her eyes as though a great amount of focus had fallen into her mind. “Yes, sir! I will retrieve the glasses at once! Right now!” Miss Snake slithered away as quickly as her slim body could go.
Dr. Chipmunk turned to Mr. Bird. “And you, Mr. Bird. When Miss Snake returns with the glasses, I would like you to deliver them to young Micah as swiftly as you can. The quicker he puts them atop his nose, the quicker the world will become a safer place to live.”
“I will do as you ask!” Mr. Bird felt proud of his assignment.
After receiving his mission from Dr. Chipmunk, Mr. Bird flew straight to his nest, which sat in a tree overlooking a beautiful lake. He retrieved his backpack, a sleeping bag, and his magical Smart Wand, which could work as a GPS to guide him wherever he needed to go. The backpack was large enough to hold young Micah’s glasses, and Mr. Bird figured the sleeping bag might be useful if he grew weary after his flight and needed to rest atop a tall tree.
At about the same time, both Mr. Bird and Miss Snake returned to Dr. Chipmunk, who was blowing bubbles in his milk.
“I got the glasses!” Miss Snake said, a little out of breath. “As you can see, I wrapped the lower half of my body around them and slithered back as quickly as I could.”
Mr. Bird, who did not often compliment Miss Snake, replied, “Good work, Miss Snake.”
Miss Snake blushed. But only a little bit. “Thank you, Mr. Bird.”
“Now we are ready to move forth with the mission!” Dr. Chipmunk jumped up and down, as much as a chipmunk can jump, and said with elation, “Mr. Bird! The mission is in your hands. Miss Snake and I know you will do your best to deliver young Micah’s glasses safely.” Dr. Chipmunk thought for a moment. “I do have one extra request, Mr. Bird. Now, I don’t want to burden you with too much, but if you could take a photograph of young Micah wearing his glasses, I would love to see it. I would like to know what he looks like as a superhero!”
Mr. Bird thought it a reasonable request and thought of his Smart Wand, which could also take photos. “I will do my best,” he replied.
Mr. Bird prepared himself for flight. First, he entered young Micah’s address into his Smart Wand so he would know the way. Second, he shook his tail feathers behind him and flapped his wings slowly to stretch the muscles he would use. Third, he began to tweet into the air. “I am ready to go,” said Mr. Bird with confidence and determination.
Mr. Bird lifted himself into the air, following his wand. He soared high above the trees, above buildings and cars, people and trains. His focus was fierce, and his wings rested on the currents of the wind, which carried him higher and higher. Mr. Bird sang hello to the other birds he passed along the way (though he had to sing out of the corner of his beak so as not to drop his Smart Wand), and when his mouth became dry, he lowered himself to the puddles and streams below—but not for long. He continued on until, finally, he arrived at young Micah’s house.
Mr. Bird looked for a soft spot to land and chose a patch of fluffy grass in Micah’s backyard. He peeked through the windows of the house to see if he could spot young Micah. He looked through the basement windows, then the main floor—the kitchen, the living room, the dining room. When he did not see Micah there, he flew higher, to the second floor. “There he is!” Mr. Bird squawked to himself.
Micah was sitting at his desk, drawing a picture with both markers and colored pencils.
Mr. Bird landed softly on the windowsill just above Micah’s head. He put his Smart Wand in his backpack and lifted the glasses with his beak. He tapped on the windowsill, and Micah looked up.
“What a silly bird,” said Micah as he exchanged his red marker for a blue one. “Go away, you silly bird!”
Mr. Bird would not be deterred. He flapped his wings hard and tapped again.
Micah ignored him at first, but as the tapping grew louder, he looked again. “This bird is the rudest bird I have ever met!” he said to himself. Then he spoke to Mr. Bird, “Excuse me, you rude bird. I am trying to draw a picture, and I cannot concentrate because you are making too much noise! Didn’t your mother teach you any manners?”
Mr. Bird shook his head and opened his beak. The glasses fell onto the windowsill.
“What the?” Micah noticed the glasses for the first time. He squinted and leaned in close to the window. Then he opened it. “How did you get these, you silly, rude bird? These look like human glasses. In fact, they look like the pair my father wants me to wear. But . . . how did you get them?” Micah was puzzled and a little amazed.
Mr. Bird tweeted a song to Micah. The melody was slow and calm, and it filled the room with a light-hearted mood.
“Hm,” thought Micah. Then he said, “Though our meeting was strange, and you did distract me from my drawing, I like you, little bird. You have a nice voice, and your colors are pure. Black and blue, like a raven. I can see that you want me to wear these glasses, but I just . . . well, I just don’t want to.”
Mr. Bird continued to sing. First it was a beautiful aria, filled with melodies so graceful that Micah almost fell asleep. When Mr. Bird saw Micah’s eyes begin to close, he changed the song completely. The second song was loud and energetic, filled with rhythms that caused Micah’s toes to start tapping. Soon, Micah was dancing around his room and jumping on his bed.
“Okay, okay, you little bird. I can see you are not going to leave me alone until I do as you wish. I will put the glasses on my face. But I assure you, I will not like them!”
Micah stepped to the windowsill, reached for the glasses, and placed them atop his nose.
Suddenly, Micah’s lips turned into a broad smile. He looked around his room and saw details he had never seen before. Then he ran back to the window and looked out into the world.
“I can see far and wide! I can discern all the bright colors in the world! I can pinpoint every detail from miles away!” Micah looked here and there, up and down, side to side. “It is all more beautiful than I had ever realized!”
Mr. Bird tweeted and hopped along the windowsill. He was proud of Micah and happy for him, too.
As Micah ran around his room looking at everything as if for the first time, Mr. Bird tweeted his good-bye and began to fly away. Micah saw that the bird was about to leave and stopped him.
“Wait, little bird!” Micah picked up the drawing he had been working on when Mr. Bird first interrupted him. “Please take this drawing. I would like you to have it, as a thank-you gift.” Mr. Bird was touched. He felt one teardrop well in the corner of his eye and fall onto the windowsill beneath his feet.
Mr. Bird tweeted, “Thank you, young Micah,” and then lifted his wings and flew away with the drawing in his beak.
Micah ran to the kitchen where his father stood cooking.
“Dad,” said Micah. “Look!”
Micah’s father turned and smiled a big, beautiful smile. “My boy! You are wearing your glasses! I am so proud of you!” Micah felt proud, too.
“May I go outside to play now, Dad?”
“Of course you can, son. Have fun.”
Micah stepped through the front door and into the sunshine. He could see the edges of the clouds above and the silhouette of each blade of grass below. He giggled as he walked down the sidewalk and noticed the bricks in the houses and the spokes on the hubcaps of the cars that drove by. Micah could see the whole world, and he was amazed by it.
Suddenly, Micah heard something crying. The cry was high and loud.
“What the?” said Micah to himself.
As he ran toward the sound, the elements in the special potion concocted by Mikanos the Mouse began to tiptoe from Micah’s lenses into his eyes. He could see that a puppy was trapped under a bush near the entrance to the park. Micah ran to the puppy and saw, quite clearly, that its paw was wrapped around one of the branches. Micah lay on the ground, unwrapped the paw, and pulled the puppy to safety.
Mr. Bird, who had not yet flown far, stopped to watch Micah’s heroism from atop a nearby chimney. He snapped a photo with his wand, as Dr. Chipmunk had asked. Then Mr. Bird said to himself, “Micah’s first act of heroism. The first of many, I am sure.”
With that, Mr. Bird turned toward the sky and began his flight home, as Micah sat on the grass, comforting the puppy and giggling as it licked his neck and cheeks.
© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2026
Beyond Equivocation: Say What You Mean with Confidence
When I was a sophomore in high school, I had an English teacher I admired greatly. She taught me how to properly structure essays and understand the mechanics of writing. One afternoon, I was called into her classroom to work on an essay she had given a failing grade. I was flummoxed by her judgment in the moment and let her know.
“You have to learn how to do it correctly before you can break the rules of writing. Right now, we are learning the right way.”
A couple of years after I graduated, I went back to visit her. We remembered that moment together, and I thanked her for the discipline she forced me into.
While I’m grateful for that lesson, it isn’t what I remember most.
The treasure I carry from her is this:
“Don’t ever justify yourself in writing. Don’t say ‘I think’ this or ‘I believe’ that. Just say what you mean and move on.”
I’ve written that way ever since.
For me, at fifteen, her advice was revolutionary. Girls are raised to be nice, to soften their language, and to defer to more established voices. Truth is often framed as something to be approved before it can be spoken.
I give this advice to every student who comes to me in the writing center or in class, and I feel a special conviction for it when I’m speaking to young women:
Write the truth. Stand behind it. Don’t justify your own thoughts.
At some point, you learn to recognize the difference between a sentence that is reaching outward and one that already says what you mean, in confidence. You can feel it when it settles, when the words hold their weight and don’t need to be subject to equivocation. That is the place to write from, not as a performance or a plea but as a statement. Something known, something claimed, something set down with the full understanding that you might change your mind tomorrow or next year, but for today, this is exactly what you meant to say.
Poem: A Modest Proposal for the Internet Age
There is a version of you
already walking around out there.
She has good lighting.
He is a series of clean paragraphs.
They speak in sentences that arrive
fully dressed.
No one interrupts them.
No one misquotes them.
No one catches the moment
before the thought lands.
They do not hesitate.
They do not circle back.
They do not say,
“Wait, that’s not what I meant.”
This version of you
does not exist in your kitchen
or your car
or the quiet ten minutes
before sleep.
Still, she is convincing.
She has been liked.
Shared.
Saved for later
by people who will not remember
where they found her.
Meanwhile,
you forget what you were saying
mid-sentence.
You start projects you never return to.
You carry conversations in your body
long after they’ve ended.
You revise yourself
in the shower.
You win arguments
three days late.
There is no algorithm for that.
No one clicks
on the unfinished version.
No one bookmarks
the moment you changed your mind
and did not announce it.
And yet,
this is the only place
anything real has ever happened.
Not in the caption,
but in the pause before it.
Not in the post,
but in the hour you spent
deciding whether to speak at all.
The Internet will continue
to assemble you
from fragments.
A sentence here.
A photograph there.
A tone someone will misunderstand
and carry with them
as if it were complete.
You will be summarized
by people who have never
heard your voice in a room.
You will be known
in ways that are technically accurate
and entirely untrue.
This is not a problem
to be solved.
It is a condition.
So—
wash your cup.
answer the email you’ve been avoiding.
tell the truth
in the next small conversation
that asks it of you.
Let your life become
slightly more aligned
with the person
who appears so effortlessly
on a screen.
Not perfectly.
Not all at once.
Just enough
that if someone were to meet you
without context,
without history,
without the archive—
they would recognize you.
And if they didn’t,
you would not feel the need
to explain.
Now,
go and become the person
you want the Internet to think you are.
© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2026
Iris Lennox
This one did not arrive gently.
The edges remember something—
a pressure,
a folding back,
as if each petal had to argue
for its place in the light.
Nothing about it is smooth.
The ruffles hold.
The color deepens where it was once hidden.
Even the softness has weight to it.
You could say it opened.
But that would miss
what it endured to become open.
There are days
the sky lowers itself without warning,
and everything living is asked
to stay.
No explanation is offered.
No promise of outcome.
Just weather.
Still, something in the root
keeps drawing what it can.
Still, something in the stem
lifts what it has been given.
And when it is finally visible—
the pale, steady unfolding—
no one sees the storms.
Only the shape they left behind.
Only the quiet fact
that it did not close again.
Only the way it stands
as if the breaking of it
was never the end.
@Jill Szoo Wilson, 2026
Free Speech and the Right to Think
By Jill Szoo Wilson
At least once a semester in communication class, I bring up the name of a famous actor or actress from the 1990s, and the students have no idea who I’m talking about. I register my surprise, make a big deal about how they don’t know anything about the world, and then show them a clip from a movie featuring said actor or actress.
This is boots meeting the ground in education.
Last semester, the name that eluded them was Meg Ryan. Fortunately, when I showed them a scene from When Harry Met Sally, two of the students recognized her. It is also important to note that most of them had not seen the movie, and when one of them asked who the short guy in the scene was, I had a second reason to faint in despair.
Let us pause in remembrance of decades past.
Moments like this have become familiar. Each year introduces a slightly different horizon of reference, and a shifting boundary between what is assumed knowledge and what has already passed out of view.
Most of the time, these gaps remain at the level of shared culture. A film, a music reference, or a name that no longer carries immediate recognition. The loss is noticeable, though in all honesty, it rarely feels truly consequential.
This week, the gap carried a different kind of weight.
I mentioned the name Jordan Peterson, and again, the room was silent. No recognition. No point of entry.
To close the gap, I had to do more than show a clip.
Peterson’s work engages questions about the conditions of thought itself, particularly the role of language in shaping what can be known, examined, and understood. Across lectures, interviews, and public debates, he has returned repeatedly to a claim that carries significant implications for how human beings think and speak. People do not first arrive at a fully formed thought and then express it. Instead, we speak in order to find out what we think, and in doing so, begin to understand what we are actually trying to say.
Using this framework, speech is not only a means of delivering a finished idea. It becomes the place where the idea is formed. Most people are not walking around with fully developed positions waiting to be expressed, although social media can create that impression. Most honest people are working their ideas out as they go. They try something in language, hear it, adjust it, run into a contradiction they did not expect, and sometimes arrive somewhere they did not plan to go at all. Peterson himself often spoke this way in lectures, beginning with a premise and working through it in real time. That is a brave act to perform in front of a thousand people on some random Tuesday.
Peterson’s claim situates speech within a longer intellectual tradition. Lev Vygotsky described thought as developing through social interaction, with language serving as the primary tool through which internal reasoning takes shape. Ludwig Wittgenstein located meaning within use, suggesting that the limits of language and the limits of thought remain closely intertwined. Within this framework, speech operates as one of the conditions through which thinking becomes possible.
When considered in this light, the question of free speech acquires a different kind of weight. The issue extends beyond the circulation of opinions or the management of public discourse. It reaches into the conditions that allow thought itself to emerge.
In the classroom, this becomes visible in small, subtle ways. A student hesitates before raising her hand because she’s not sure how something will land. A comment is softened, or abandoned altogether, because it might be taken the wrong way. A question goes unasked because it feels easier to stay quiet than to risk being misunderstood. None of these moments appear particularly dramatic, though each one narrows the space in which thought can be worked out in real time. It removes the moment where a person hears themselves clearly enough to recognize that something does not hold… or that it does.
Whatever thoughts are constrained in the room do not disappear. The student conceals them and at times carries them elsewhere to test in a more sympathetic environment, where agreement is more likely.
When speech does not disappear but simply moves out of view, it changes shape. Without response or resistance from the real-life community, ideas tend to harden. What might have been clarified in the open becomes more certain in private. For example, a student writes something in a discussion board they know will not be challenged, and it stays exactly as it is. The same idea, spoken out loud in a room, would have met a question, a pause, a raised eyebrow, something to press against. Without that, it holds.
Some amount of friction is part of how thinking happens. It gives ideas something to meet, something that reveals both their limits and their strength.
To think with any depth means holding two competing ideas at once without reducing either one into something easier to dismiss. Something that can stand on its own. It means articulating a position you do not agree with well enough that someone who does would recognize it. It means resisting the urge to resolve the tension too early. That kind of thinking is slower. It asks for precision. It asks for attention. And it asks for restraint, the willingness to let both ideas remain intact long enough to actually see them.
That work depends on language. It depends on the ability to say something before it is complete, to hear it, and to revise it.
What takes place in a classroom extends into the wider structure of public life. The same dynamics appear at a larger scale, where the pressures shaping speech influence the development of thought across entire communities. When speech narrows, whether through formal restriction or informal pressure, the range of what can be articulated begins to contract. Thought continues, though along more limited paths. Some ideas remain unspoken. Others circulate without meaningful challenge. Over time, this reshaping of discourse influences what can be examined, questioned, and understood.
Peterson’s insistence on the role of speech in thought formation places him within this broader conversation. His position has generated controversy in part because it resists attempts to separate language from its cognitive and social functions. To speak carries risk. It opens a person to misunderstanding, critique, and revision, and places a developing thought into contact with other minds. That contact is where refinement becomes possible.
The stakes of this position become clearer when viewed through the environments in which thinking occurs. A classroom, a conversation, or a public forum. Each serves as a site in which language mediates the development of ideas. The freedom to speak within these spaces does not guarantee clarity or truth. It establishes the conditions under which both can be pursued.
What began as a question about who students recognize in a classroom unfolded into a larger inquiry about how knowledge is formed. Cultural memory shifts. Names recede. New figures emerge. Beneath these changes, the underlying process remains consistent. Thought develops through articulation, through response, and through the sustained interaction between language and understanding.
Within that process, speech holds a central place. It allows a person to hear what they are saying closely enough to recognize where it holds and where it begins to shift.
In the end, the question of free speech returns to something simple. It has to do with whether there is still room to say something before it is finished, and to let it change in the presence of other people.
Poem: And She Flew
Currents of wind
Grasping blue
From the sky
Mixing colors—
Translucent white
Floating by
In puffs
Like smoke
But water
Cascading
Masquerading
As clouds, drifting down
To rest upon
The ocean’s top
Atop the undercurrents
Pulling dark and light
Together
In a haze
Under the phase
Of the moon
Where fullness
Steers the darkness
From the light.
At night the sense of
Flight
Alights
In dreams and hopes
A knotted rope
Hangs from the stars
And swings
As she sings
Like a bird
Whose song is sung
Carelessly
Without thought
She calls into the night
Filling it
From empty
To bright
And falls into
The space where
Downwind caresses
Upwind lifts
And buoyancy calls her
Higher still.
As hummingbirds swing
Creatures below
Sting
With venom held
Inside teeth
Red with the catching
Stories repeat
Through dust and mold
Dark with lies
Whispered inside
By unseen spies
Who feed on souls
Who fill the roles
Like actors
Paid to play
Unable to reach
The heart
And open—
Unfold
Like art.
The ones below
Whose wings were clipped
Set a scheme
Narrow as a
Tightrope
A balance beam
A trap
Set with bait
And they waited
Inside a box
Designed to promise
The only way
Into hope
From hopelessness—
To pull her down
To steal her crown
A crucible
Of fire
Inside folded walls
Where stories
Cease to be told.
She flapped her wings
Tilted her head
Toward the earth
Wondered
Then wandered
Through the expanse
Where freedom
Takes its chance
On little birds
Such as she
She caught a breeze
Saw her reflection
In the sea
Caught a glimpse
Of her worth
And floated down
To the cardboard flaps
Of the box
The dark ones
Moved
Like worms
The kind of worms
Eaten by birds.
It looked easy enough
Fold the second flap
Then the first
And follow the way
They had planned
To be kept
From the sky
From the breeze
From the warmth of the sun
The turn of the season
From the spring
That would
Enchant her
Like a lover
Enhance her
With colors
Vibrant
Breathing
Beating
With life
To romance her.
“No,” she thought
And then—
“No,” she said
The comfort of that dark
Is stark
The safety of that space
Is small
A quiet that settles
For an hour
Sweet at first
Then turning
She felt it
And knew it
And chose—
She rose
And she flew
And she flew.
© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2026
Poem: Stay
Peter pressed the issue
About the past
He said it is a bridge
Collapsing behind
With every step
In space or in the mind
The sound of crumbling
Is all that remains.
Anna disagreed
And touched
The back of her head
She said,
“The past is braided
here next to my skull
interwoven threads attached
cascading down.”
The debate rolled around
Like a tumbleweed
Dry and filled
With agitation and
With wind and
Picking up the dust
Of misunderstanding and of
Disconnection.
“But I remember,”
Said Anna, and
“I do too,”
He whispered into
The air heavy with
Distance between
Her admission and his
Isolation.
Invisible walls
Erected between
Murky like swamp water
Disorienting like smoke
Cloudy like breath on glass—
And if he looked with only eyes
He would have turned away
Like fear.
In his imagination
He was strong
Moving along
The path in between
His hesitation and
Her vacillation
Conquering impending
Devastation.
Peter felt bolts
Screw through his feet
Into the floor
Caught between
Tomorrow and
Before
The middle of the moment
Weighted like an anvil.
He felt like a clown
Tears rolling down
Behind a mask of
White painted on
A smile red
Withdrawn
From the truth
Within.
Anna said a simple thing,
“You are afraid
of the future
and I run from
the past
maybe the middle
is all
we have.”
Something true
Like a flash of lightning
Filled the room
Forced
Confusion to scatter
Like bugs or
Like demons
Who dwell in the dark.
They stood in the kaleidoscope
That splashes
Onto eyelids pulled down
After sunlight exposes
Reality
Leaving only
Shapes and pigments
Behind.
Peter did the thing
That frightened him
Most
And Anna met him
There
He stepped into the future
She let go of the past
From the middle she whispered,
“Stay.”
© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2026
Poem: Drenched
Once I was told that Hope
Is the sky filled with sunshine
That it spreads like light,
Floats like a helium filled balloon,
Dances like the tail of a kite.
I wondered at this metaphor
Sprawling amidst the wind
Like a howling current
Vibrating on the wings of
Birds that flap before they soar.
Can Hope be so far
Above my head
Where only flying things
Rise to tread
And I on the ground
Watching
Awaiting release
Of a treasure trove
Unlatched and
Spilling down?
What if Hope is more like rain—
A simile easier to attain—
It does not gently lie atop
The atmosphere but
Is conjured inside storms
Like a witch’s brew
Bubbling through with contents
Thrown into a fiery caldron
Until that time when
The pressure built, releases.
Storm-soaked orbs floating down
Subject to the whims of
Gusts above and around
Hollow of motivation
Innocent as they fall to the ground.
And we, in soggy shoes,
Choose to stay
In the rain
Marinate
Let it penetrate
All the way through—
Some people run for cover
But not us
Not the dreamers
Or the lovers
Or the ones who understand
That the storms
Force the hands
Of Hope and of those
Stubborn in their wills
To see the brightness
Ahead—
Withstanding
Steeping
In watery expectation.
My friend,
If they tell you
Hope is the sun
Smile, nod and
Move along
With squeaky shoes
Leaving tracks
On the ground
To be found by those
Who seek the courage to drown.
© Jill Szoo Wilson, 2026
Jill Szoo Wilson 