Wednesday, April 12, 2023 // The Statement — 5
Canopy Magazine, a U-M student
organization, will be publishing a
book-length anthology of the tiny
desk and its contents. There are
hundreds and hundreds of anon-
ymous entries. This piece was
written in collaboration with oth-
er members of the Canopy team.
The project started with an
idea: include everyone. Since the
beginning of this semester, when
the weather was pleasant, we’d
randomly pick a day to bring the
small desk and chair out on the
Diag, arranging it with a selection
of colorful books and a mug filled
with pens and crayons. We’d
provide a prompt and a journal.
The only instructions we’d attach
were “write: a short paragraph or
poem” and “draw: a doodle.”
Except to check up on the
desk every few hours, we didn’t
monitor it. Each time, the jour-
nal had miraculously begun to
fill. There was always something
happening: an artist sitting in
the chair, a student leafing idly
through the pages, two strang-
ers in conversation. Some would
spend a good chunk of time there,
while others just stopped in for a
second to look, to lean in.
When we first set up the
desk in January, we were worried
someone would vandalize some-
thing, or steal or tell us to stop.
But these things never happened.
The generosity of students on
campus was its moving force.
“Love” was the most-written
word, by far.
Prompt #1: the place that I love
At first, our team was only
five or six members large, so we
couldn’t watch the desk all the
time. Left alone, however, the
desk seemed to automatically
generate care and compassion.
Some
writers
addressed
the prompt directly, others only
partly. Most writers ignored the
prompt altogether, choosing in-
stead to pen something from the
heart. People began talking to
each other on the page, improvis-
ing as the day went on.
“I love you,” somebody wrote.
“I love you more!” someone
wrote in response.
People had written in differ-
ent languages, coming from dif-
ferent places or walks of life.
“The place that I love was
never a place. It was an infini-
tesimally small moment, one of
warmth, comfort, and security,
one with you,” penned one per-
son. “It was the travels we made
and will make. It’s the feeling I get
hearing your laugh. The saddest
moment was realizing I loved the
place that I left.”
Prompt #2. feels like a person
I’ve met, or a strange animal
On an especially windy day
on North Campus, by Pierpont
Commons, we noticed the first
interactions between the book
and the environment. One page,
streaked with mud from having
fallen to the ground, bore a heart-
warming message:
“This notebook fell down +
got picked up. So will you.”
Flipping further, the reader
discovers a collage of strange ani-
mals: an eyeball with butterfly-wing
makeup, adjacent to a bird out of
a Wes Anderson movie. A paper
plane flies over a paper crane.
Leaning against these crea-
tures, an entry reads, “not commit-
ting might be less scary, giving up
might be easier, but if you never put
down roots, you will never grow.”
Prompt #3. something I want to
remember
We learned many things
throughout the process — like to
only set up the tiny desk when it’s
not insanely windy. Inevitably,
even on quiet days, a gust will
flutter the pages, flipping them,
threatening to pull them apart.
Between pages of crayon-
drawn flowers, caricatures, and
a hand-turkey, a written entry
stands alone, the letters swirling
together in red ink. The bitter-
sweet reflection is concluded with
a small heart, drawn underneath
two previous attempts that were
subsequently scribbled over:
“I want to remember your
words. The way you smiled, the
way you laughed at my jokes.
The way you were happy when
we were together. But with ev-
ery day that goes by, I slowly
forget, but I hope I’ll always re-
member you.”
Prompt #4. something part of
who I am
Occasionally, people would
band together to complete a page
of group artwork: mural-like.
“Keep your head held high,”
one student wrote below a series
of tiny animals: a turtle, a singing
chicken. On one such page, an as-
sortment of drawings interweaves
between blocks of brief poetry.
“When it gets dark enough,
you will finally be able to see the
stars,” someone wrote below that.
Above this, beside a cool-
looking cat, reads, “Life some-
times sucks but that’s okay!”
To which another voice re-
sponded: “I agree, but we keep
moving forward.”
Prompt #5. I see a glimpse of it
every day
Something
about
the
little desk seems to bring out
what people are really feeling.
STEVE LIU
Statement Correspondent
We put a little desk on the Diag.
Here’s what we found
Continue on page 6 of this insert.
Photos courtesy of Canopy Magazine