I was babysitting a brother and a sister in Brooklyn and one of the things I was asked to do was to help them with their homework, involving a certain poem in a very thick schoolbook. After we’d cleared out the dinner table, I’d read them the poem and the accompanying assignment questions meant to discuss it. I knew both the children well and I didn’t anticipate they’d fight me on this. Having already had some experience as a teacher of little ones, getting through various types of schoolwork with young kids was not something to which I any longer gave much thought or innovation. However, being a poet myself, I saw and noticed that we were about to deal with something written in verse and it made me quietly joyful, hoping I could convey to them my own passion and love of the form.
The girl was older and more cooperative, so after being given the assignments, she obediently took her piece of paper and started answering:
1.What kind of colors and sounds appear within the poem?
2.What are the pairs of rhyming words which were used?
… And finally, the dreaded-by-creative-people-everywhere question:
10.What did the poet mean to say by this? *
Lucky for me, the little boy saw right though the hypocrisy and difficulty of this task for a 7-year-old and proceeded to throw a full on tantrum. It wasn’t the kind of tantrum thrown out of being bored, spoilt or bratty, it was a genuine response to somebody asking of you to swallow the sun and then frowning upon you strictly when you are unable to do so. He sat at the table soaking his empty paper with tears and saliva, and, in what I like to think of as one of my better care-giving moments, he made me reconsider my entire approach.
“Hey”, I said. “How about you write your own poem on that same topic instead?”
He stopped the bawling and slowly lifted his head from the paper at a 30 degree angle. Then he hiccuped and answered: “I suppose… that would be OK.”
And this is how it began. His sister instantly squealed with joy and also abandoned the 10 questions for the benefit of her own creation. This was the first of numerous writing prompts I would go on to give them and the beginning of their own storytelling journey. I was impressed and taken aback by all the things they had to say, all the silly little rhymes they employed, all the colors and sounds that appeared within their own poems. But most of all, I was impressed by how far from the question of what the poet meant to say we had all come, all 3 of us, a kind of a creative rebirth happening right there at the kitchen table.
The truth of the matter is — they made me want to write. Which you have to admit is quite a shift, from making me want to pull my hair out mere minutes earlier. And if nothing was completed that day but the fact that a little boy was not forced into answering a questionnaire about one of the most worthwhile art forms, then I would still call this time well spent.
Also, I would dare say that enjoying the creative process itself without fear of criticism is most one could hope to achieve during a single afternoon spent at a kitchen table in Brooklyn.
* I don’t care if you are 9 or 99, there really is no good answer to this. Like one of my favorite professors in undergrad used to say: “The poet did not mean to say anything by writing the poem, if he did he would have said it in a straightforward sentence instead.” Sheesh.
Iva Ticic completed her MFA at Sarah Lawrence College in 2014. She is originally from Croatia where she currently resides and teaches ESL, Creative Writing and Public Speaking at a private college.
Her chapbook, Alice in Greenpoint, is forthcoming from Finishing Line Press. You can order it here.