Thursday, September 25, 2008

This is too cool!

My sugar plum, five year old daughter created her own poem. She was standing on a wall about four feet high, trying to figure out how to get down without falling. This is what she said:

Bird, bird sitting on a wall,
afraid to fly, afraid to fall.

What title would you give it?

16 comments:

ruthibel said...

Dilemma.

Your five-y-o said that??

Yo, that one is a little genius!!

Geoffrey Philp said...

I wouldn't name it. It is...
rhythm,imagery,pathos and...
2 lines!!!?
Ezra Pound would have been envious

Daisy Soap Girl said...

I love it. She definitely has your blood running thru her. This reminds me of a baby Mourning Dove that was born in my winter box. One morning when it was old enough to fly on it's own the parents just left it. It was chirping & chirping, afraid to fly. When we came home that evening it had gathered it's courage & flown away.

J.M said...

Thanks you guys. I did do some due diligence- I asked her "Did Teacher teach you that poem?" She said "No, I just said it."


Geoffery, you're right, plus naming it would be tampering with it. But giving suggestions for a title is a way of making an analysis. I also get to hear other people's thoughts about the poem. I mean, take Ruth's "Dilemma", I wouldn't have thought of that, isn't it quite apt?

Rethabile said...

Dilemma is good. But Geoffrey's right. It stands for itself and says what it has to say quite well.

Geoffrey Philp said...

Jack Mandora, this is also something that I hinted at over at Pam's blog and is one of the off shoots of when poetry is taught ONLY in schools: the pleasure of the poem is lost.

Sure, as I read it I analyzed it out of habit, but I was drawn back to the simplicity of the utterance--the beauty.

In other words, not everything has to be anal-yzed.

We can love w/out judgmant.

Peace,
Geoffrey

J.M said...

And I'm so pleased to have have a poet in residence, I wouldn't want to cramp her style by anal-yzing her art.

Thanks for both your comments.

September 27, 2008 3:36 PM

Stephen A. Bess said...

I don't know what to name it, but I love it.

Unknown said...

Oh my - that is the Sweetest thing ever. I sense a budding talent!

Jdid said...

wicked poem that

J.M said...

Virtual ear to ear smile. Picture the Milo commercial with Mrs Jones as her son's biggest fan.

Anonymous said...

I don't know ... sometimes to name something, to give a title, sets up expectations. And besides, that old question, "What does the poem mean" never made much sense to me. A poem just is - sometimes with a title, if the poet wants to set you off in a certain direction, but sometimes not.

I love her comment: "I just said it." I have composed precisely one poem that way in my life - not sitting at a desk but standing in a field responding to lightning bugs. It just came, and was perfect - like hers!

And thanks for stopping by at my blog. I've appreciated your visits but have been a little...umm.. distracted. I'm glad to be getting myself to a point where I can enjoy other folks' writing again!

Linda

Anonymous said...

hey jay, a title for your "sugar plum's" poem is "Flight Fright". Janet

J.M said...

Linda,

ah, these distractions...

"....not sitting at a desk but standing in a field responding to lightning bugs" I too have noticed how inspiration tends to come at places and times like these.

Janet,

"Flight fright" has a the right pickney feel to it.

Angel Girl saw her poem on here and she is quite proud of it; she's recited it a few times around the house.

neena maiya (guyana gyal) said...

Five years old? She's good.

I'd name it Fear. It relates to us, people, doesn't it?

Fear of leaving bad relationships, jobs. Fear of change. Fear of thinking new ways, trying out something different.

J.M said...

That little f word can certainly hold us back from really soaring, can't it?