The Fourth-Grade Poetry Reading

One by one, the fourth graders approach the podium, perhaps praying to Erato, the muse of poetry, to offer their poems. Chins tucked, microphones held precariously in the general vicinity of their mouths, half-whispering, they rush through their pieces. Half of the works are entitled “I Am.” The others are acrostics of their names, their favorite things, and in one case, a dead sister.

We moms and dads, aunts and uncles, begrudging siblings gather in the elementary school library to hear the poems of a fourth-grade class.

Reading their poems at a speed that would make a New Yorker jealous, their listeners miss most of their words about Walmart and snow and golden retrievers, the stuff of their lives. But every so often a line shoots out, like, “One day my dad will come home from Kuwait / And together we’ll clean the gutters,” or “Sometimes I hear things I don’t like / But then I get over it” or “I am a star / In my own La-La Land.” Lines that define their desires and their hurts and their humanity.

A few of the fourth graders ham their way through it; most wear the color of embarrassment on their cheeks. But this is only because they are proud of their works. They’ve chosen each word, crafted each line. Their poems, a collection that exceeds the selections read at the assembly, have been collated in a binder. These binders will find their ways into attics and eventually be discarded at a spring cleaning. Perhaps one or two of the fourth-graders will carry forth the practice of word-crafting. But on this day, these fourth graders are poets. On this day, they work through meaning in their lives through stanza.

Not all who put word to page, who carry Mead notebooks, who skim thesaurus, will be discovered by agent, editor, masses. Most will toil in obscurity. But this does not negate the value of the work. The spoken and written word inherits ideas of communication, and some will communicate outside the published realm, through bedtime ritual with children or gatherings (online or off) with friends. Stories will be told while hiking or driving. Lyrics will be practiced in garages.

Our words may not meander into future college anthologies, but they are meaningful in as much as we as individuals and communities imbue them with meaning.

So go forth with your composition notebooks, sneaking words into them on leisurely afternoons or during boring meetings at work. This kind of work is not wasted.

Heather A. Goodman puts word to page on church bulletins, backs of receipts, and occasionally computer page. Some of these words make it to her website, L'Chaim.

Comments

[Kelly Langner Sauer]

Oh, I very much like this post. I wish I'd been there. How inspiring.

[Nicole]

I agree. Write on.

[Heather]

It did me good to hear my niece read poetry!

[Joelle]

Beautifully put! Thank you for the encouragement.

[nance nAncY nanc hey-you davis-baby]

sneaking words... i like that.

[deb @ talk at the table]

loved this.
my first poem was in Gr. 4 , about Black Beauty.