miseducation by author Aerik Francis
Reviewed by Noel Quiñones
A Sharpened Juxtaposition: A Review of miseducation
The cover of the chapbook looks like a zoomed-in image of mitosis, the natural process of cells splitting. Yet, a closer look shows a mesh of white, purple, and gray threads; the connections between the cells are manufactured and human-made. This is an apt introduction to miseducation (New Delta Review, 2023), the second chapbook from Aerik Francis, because it shows how interconnection can be multilayered, deceiving and unavoidable. This collection is a testament to the deliberate and insidious ways that academia seeks to break, separate, and devalue students within its coveted halls by shedding light on what has often been kept behind closed doors. While they spend the majority of their work bringing these harms to the surface, Francis subtly names what is needed to combat these harms: community. Through sharpened juxtaposition and repetitive wordplay, as well as deconstructed and subversive poetic forms, Francis unearths the messy interconnections that academia preys upon.
miseducation is full of innovative and thought-provoking poetic structures, such as redacted documents, abecedarians, sestinas, and erasures. On a formal level, Francis uses their expansive knowledge of the written word to upend ivy tower poetics. Francis explains one of the erasure poems, “Political Science,” in the notes section of the book: “The original letter was a list of theoretical and polemical questions denouncing diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives” posted by “a professor [Francis] was assigned to work for as a teaching assistant.” (33). Through redaction, this blackout poem states, “anti ▬▬ discourse ▬▬ an institution dominated▬▬ by▬▬ people who ▬▬ espouse▬▬ science▬▬ no longer▬▬ ” (4). The very poem is anti discourse, citing the academic language of a professor to then highlight how the professor themself “espouse[s] science no longer” if they seek to demonize the proven social science merit of other’s lived experiences. Francis employs many methods to showcase the hypocrisy in higher education–an institution that silences those who are struggling, who are different, and who are socialized to not cite and decry the harm being done. The very titles of the chapbook are a clapback against this institution, as they are all bracketed with underscores, resembling files on a computer screen. This underscoring gives one the sense that each poem is a document, an archive, a testimonial that has been filed away, a list of complaints and pleas for support hidden away.
The fifth poem in the chapbook, “_On Crypts & Currency_,” introduces us to the often unspoken cost of academia. In starting the poem with an em dash, the reader is introduced in media res, saddled with an unspoken and unexplained “debt”:
—Psychological debt. I don’t
Mean that in the dismissive “it’s all in your head” way--
but more daily, more automated than considered. The
“I owe you an email” The “I’ll pay you back” The “Are
You interested?” “I’m not invested” “’Put’ ‘your’ ‘money’
‘where’ ‘your’ ‘mouth’— (6).
This list of disembodied quotes detail both the impersonal nature of academic relationships and the insidious way that these small moments of fabricated connection build and build over time as the quotes lose context and the lines continue. The quotation marks mimic a more robotic tone as we are guided to read each word alone, mirroring the solitude built from forced and insincere community building. In the second stanza of the poem, we return to “debt” as if the speaker of the poem is trying to hold all their thoughts together:
—Speaking of debt, yes, I
mean credit, no, I’m mean now for talking about it.
These mean words & their meanings. Yes, these mean
words, filtered & curved average, meaning status quo (6).
Through repetitive wordplay, the “meaning” of the speaker’s experiences are labeled as “mean” and get funneled into a “filtered & curved average” that becomes “meaningless” within the context of academia. The speaker repeats a version of “mean” six times in four lines, the word leaping from an emotion to a mathematical concept to a verb for definition. This quick leaping renders the word both full of meaning and meaningless. This interconnection is not just a thought experiment or disembodied theory but something living within the speaker as Francis applies academia’s approach to real life. This is exemplified in how both stanzas begin with an — half across the page, as if trying to raise a complaint but then being shuffled back in place, “the status quo” reached through the overall paragraph form of the stanza.
In “_Life of the Mind_” where Francis’ poetic form is the academic abstract, the poem opens with the epigraph: “Abstract text — limited to 250 words.” The poem itself is a product of academia, a written proposal distilled and measured as if a perfect science. Francis uses juxtaposition and repetitive wordplay to mimic academic language and highlight it’s hypocrisy:
Pick a theory from the menu of canon. Strain the literature. Drill a gap. Fill with seminal models. Make a method novel and robust. Take a free sample. Argue. The independent variable is power and the result is money. The dependent variables are money and the result is power. Publish the paygate. Repeat until tenured. Repeat until married. Repeat until administered. Repeat until the body reads the score. (5).
This series of short, instructive, and robotic lines interspersed with clear directives paints the picture of how academia processes information and inevitably, people. Students and professors alike are asked to “strain the literature” and “drill” into it to fill it with scientific models and understandings that deny the emotions and lived experiences of those who are taught to do this. Academia claims to be a place in which the free exchange of ideas and progressive values abound, yet universities have clear hierarchies of power and labor exploitation between professors and students. The last line of the poem alludes to Bessel Van Der Kolk’s famous book about trauma, The Body Keeps the Score, implying that higher education’s focus on knowledge production disconnects professors and students from affirming embodied knowledge and experiences.
miseducation spends the majority of its pages sharply critiquing higher education, yet in highlighting harm it also highlights care. Francis does not do this to absolve academia or to identify a light at the end of the tunnel, but rather to show that connection persists. In “_Elegy_,” Francis reflects on a professor who the speaker remembers fondly at their funeral. They write, “tenured professor in jeans, hoodie, & Timbs, / your classes never felt like academics, more / personal conversations with myriad citations.” (19). In using academic language in a communal context, Francis’ speaker centers what is possible if we see each other as people. In this way, we are able to witness a glimmer of the humanity that has been revoked, erased, and ignored. But of course, the institution carries on in its wicked ways, as Francis’ speaker remembers that this professor “defended [them] like a thesis, even still / fatigued from the onslaught of debacles.” (19). This poem serves as proof, not of academia’s ability or desire to change, but of the interconnectedness we naturally yearn for as human beings. In pitting academia against the natural community building of people, we are invited to begin the hard but necessary work of uneducating ourselves of these harmful learnings. miseducation is a staunch decrial of the violence of academia, so much so that Francis’ speaker left altogether. Academia may be so cemented in our society that it is unredeemable, but in this collection’s biting critique of it, we just might learn how to start to treat each other better than the systems, and those who support them, treat us.
The cover of the chapbook looks like a zoomed-in image of mitosis, the natural process of cells splitting. Yet, a closer look shows a mesh of white, purple, and gray threads; the connections between the cells are manufactured and human-made. This is an apt introduction to miseducation (New Delta Review, 2023), the second chapbook from Aerik Francis, because it shows how interconnection can be multilayered, deceiving and unavoidable. This collection is a testament to the deliberate and insidious ways that academia seeks to break, separate, and devalue students within its coveted halls by shedding light on what has often been kept behind closed doors. While they spend the majority of their work bringing these harms to the surface, Francis subtly names what is needed to combat these harms: community. Through sharpened juxtaposition and repetitive wordplay, as well as deconstructed and subversive poetic forms, Francis unearths the messy interconnections that academia preys upon.
miseducation is full of innovative and thought-provoking poetic structures, such as redacted documents, abecedarians, sestinas, and erasures. On a formal level, Francis uses their expansive knowledge of the written word to upend ivy tower poetics. Francis explains one of the erasure poems, “Political Science,” in the notes section of the book: “The original letter was a list of theoretical and polemical questions denouncing diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives” posted by “a professor [Francis] was assigned to work for as a teaching assistant.” (33). Through redaction, this blackout poem states, “anti ▬▬ discourse ▬▬ an institution dominated▬▬ by▬▬ people who ▬▬ espouse▬▬ science▬▬ no longer▬▬ ” (4). The very poem is anti discourse, citing the academic language of a professor to then highlight how the professor themself “espouse[s] science no longer” if they seek to demonize the proven social science merit of other’s lived experiences. Francis employs many methods to showcase the hypocrisy in higher education–an institution that silences those who are struggling, who are different, and who are socialized to not cite and decry the harm being done. The very titles of the chapbook are a clapback against this institution, as they are all bracketed with underscores, resembling files on a computer screen. This underscoring gives one the sense that each poem is a document, an archive, a testimonial that has been filed away, a list of complaints and pleas for support hidden away.
The fifth poem in the chapbook, “_On Crypts & Currency_,” introduces us to the often unspoken cost of academia. In starting the poem with an em dash, the reader is introduced in media res, saddled with an unspoken and unexplained “debt”:
—Psychological debt. I don’t
Mean that in the dismissive “it’s all in your head” way--
but more daily, more automated than considered. The
“I owe you an email” The “I’ll pay you back” The “Are
You interested?” “I’m not invested” “’Put’ ‘your’ ‘money’
‘where’ ‘your’ ‘mouth’— (6).
This list of disembodied quotes detail both the impersonal nature of academic relationships and the insidious way that these small moments of fabricated connection build and build over time as the quotes lose context and the lines continue. The quotation marks mimic a more robotic tone as we are guided to read each word alone, mirroring the solitude built from forced and insincere community building. In the second stanza of the poem, we return to “debt” as if the speaker of the poem is trying to hold all their thoughts together:
—Speaking of debt, yes, I
mean credit, no, I’m mean now for talking about it.
These mean words & their meanings. Yes, these mean
words, filtered & curved average, meaning status quo (6).
Through repetitive wordplay, the “meaning” of the speaker’s experiences are labeled as “mean” and get funneled into a “filtered & curved average” that becomes “meaningless” within the context of academia. The speaker repeats a version of “mean” six times in four lines, the word leaping from an emotion to a mathematical concept to a verb for definition. This quick leaping renders the word both full of meaning and meaningless. This interconnection is not just a thought experiment or disembodied theory but something living within the speaker as Francis applies academia’s approach to real life. This is exemplified in how both stanzas begin with an — half across the page, as if trying to raise a complaint but then being shuffled back in place, “the status quo” reached through the overall paragraph form of the stanza.
In “_Life of the Mind_” where Francis’ poetic form is the academic abstract, the poem opens with the epigraph: “Abstract text — limited to 250 words.” The poem itself is a product of academia, a written proposal distilled and measured as if a perfect science. Francis uses juxtaposition and repetitive wordplay to mimic academic language and highlight it’s hypocrisy:
Pick a theory from the menu of canon. Strain the literature. Drill a gap. Fill with seminal models. Make a method novel and robust. Take a free sample. Argue. The independent variable is power and the result is money. The dependent variables are money and the result is power. Publish the paygate. Repeat until tenured. Repeat until married. Repeat until administered. Repeat until the body reads the score. (5).
This series of short, instructive, and robotic lines interspersed with clear directives paints the picture of how academia processes information and inevitably, people. Students and professors alike are asked to “strain the literature” and “drill” into it to fill it with scientific models and understandings that deny the emotions and lived experiences of those who are taught to do this. Academia claims to be a place in which the free exchange of ideas and progressive values abound, yet universities have clear hierarchies of power and labor exploitation between professors and students. The last line of the poem alludes to Bessel Van Der Kolk’s famous book about trauma, The Body Keeps the Score, implying that higher education’s focus on knowledge production disconnects professors and students from affirming embodied knowledge and experiences.
miseducation spends the majority of its pages sharply critiquing higher education, yet in highlighting harm it also highlights care. Francis does not do this to absolve academia or to identify a light at the end of the tunnel, but rather to show that connection persists. In “_Elegy_,” Francis reflects on a professor who the speaker remembers fondly at their funeral. They write, “tenured professor in jeans, hoodie, & Timbs, / your classes never felt like academics, more / personal conversations with myriad citations.” (19). In using academic language in a communal context, Francis’ speaker centers what is possible if we see each other as people. In this way, we are able to witness a glimmer of the humanity that has been revoked, erased, and ignored. But of course, the institution carries on in its wicked ways, as Francis’ speaker remembers that this professor “defended [them] like a thesis, even still / fatigued from the onslaught of debacles.” (19). This poem serves as proof, not of academia’s ability or desire to change, but of the interconnectedness we naturally yearn for as human beings. In pitting academia against the natural community building of people, we are invited to begin the hard but necessary work of uneducating ourselves of these harmful learnings. miseducation is a staunch decrial of the violence of academia, so much so that Francis’ speaker left altogether. Academia may be so cemented in our society that it is unredeemable, but in this collection’s biting critique of it, we just might learn how to start to treat each other better than the systems, and those who support them, treat us.
Noel Quiñones is a Puerto Rican writer, educator, and community organizer from the Bronx. He’s received fellowships from Poets House, the Poetry Foundation, CantoMundo, Tin House, and SAFTA (Sundress Academy for the Arts). His work has been published in POETRY, the Latin American Review, Kweli Journal, and is forthcoming in Tupelo Quarterly and Gulf Coast. He is the founder of Project X, a Bronx-based arts organization, a poetry book reviewer for Muzzle Magazine, and a current M.F.A. candidate in poetry at the University of Mississippi. Follow him online @noelpquinones.