What happens to a voice unheard?
Does it get lodged
Like popcorn kernels behind a tonsil?
Or deflate like a tire—
And then collapse?
Does it smell like singed hair?
Or bubble and fizz
Like a chemical reaction?
Maybe it just whispers
Like a secret in one’s ears.
Or does it scream?
Julie Wasmund Hoffman is an educator with Springfield Public Schools in Illinois. She is also an adjunct professor in the Teacher Education Program at University of Illinois Springfield. Her research interests include urban education, social and emotional learning, children’s literature, and empathy. Her passion is to help students who have experienced trauma find healing, resilience, and empowerment through their own writing and the writing of others.
