Starting from Nina

This is a celebration of poetry and learning It is a collective reflection began by Budd Hall asking a number of his generation of Canadian friends and social movement educators for their thoughts about Paulo Freire and poetics. All of us have been influenced by Paulo Freire. We are also all poets or lovers of poetry, and we all were privileged at one time or another to meet and work with Paulo. We have all in our diverse settings felt his spirit as we have worked towards justice as best we could. This piece also contains something very rare indeed, a poem written by Paulo. In this collective reflection we share thoughts about poetry, learning and social justice. We look at Paulo’s own poem to find clues to his thoughts on teaching and change. We welcome your own reflections on poetry, on Paulo and the challenges of social movement learning today.