The place of language (poems, stories, words) in your childhood
Please post your favorite passage (or mine) from your piece--you all wrote beautiful work and I think they're all worth sharing.
7 Replies
Recognize this in my sense of humor?
Once upon a time, a very long time ago now, about last Friday, Winnie-the-Pooh lived in a forest all by himself under the name of Sanders.
"What does 'under the name' mean?" asked Christopher Robin.
"It means he had the name over the door in gold letters, and lived under it."
It was all about sounds. "Tatoo was the mother of Pinkle Purr," "Christopher Robin had sneezles and wheezles," and "Winnie THER Pooh--don't you know what THER means?!"
But my all-time favorite:
When I was one I was just begun
When I was two I was nearly new
When I was three I was hardly me
When I was four I was not much more
When I was five I was just alive
But now I am six
I'm the cleverest of clever
So I think I'll stay six now
For ever and ever.
Thanks for the bite, A.A. Milne.
This post was edited on: 2010-01-22 at 11:51 PM by: jdeborahklein
This post was edited on: 2010-01-22 at 11:52 PM by: jdeborahklein
This post was edited on: 2010-01-22 at 11:52 PM by: jdeborahklein
These parts are just terrific.
Once upon a time, a very long time ago now, about last Friday,...
But now I am six
I'm the cleverest of clever
So I think I'll stay six now
For ever and ever.
I loved the true feeling of actually being there. I won't say more because I'll murder it and then feel terrible.
So, yes!
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-jwxp
This was the only part of my piece that I didn't want to cut up and throw in a shredder... I'm still iffy about this piece as a whole. I think it is because I can't remember a happier childhood. I only remember very random instances of the orphanage, and they were always insignificant to me...
I don't know where I want this piece to go, but I will never call it finished.
Stories were the first thing I heard. My mom always said she spoke to me through the moon before she adopted me. As a child, I heard the various stories of how another child was sick, dying or dead through the lips of the caretakers in my orphanage. No one sang to me.
And I couldn’t explore the world for myself, so I listened and watched the ceiling. Listened to the stories.
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-jwxp
Jade--
I thought that was beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time. It was very nicely written and your voice spoke well in it.
In terms of replying to this thread with my own work, might I just say that i hate computers. My computer has deleted it but I'll find the original work and type it up soon.
Good stuff
"Once upon a time, a very long time ago now, about last Friday"
Love that. I'm still such a kid that last Friday seems like a very long time ago.
And also, to Jade, that passage is very depressing but so... I don't want to say touching, I'm not all mushy. Its interesting in the non-cold-intellectual way. I always liked the gossipy real-life stories people tell their friends, but I wonder how life is when you only hear stories about sick people. Like a stereotypical hospital. I'm so morbid. But that still sucks.
I have to say that childhood trauma and stories seem to shape the entire rest of your life. They say that your influences when your ages 4-6 make you who you are and your brain is like 80 % full, but let me change that statement up a bit "During ages 4-6 everything that happens to you will haunt you till you die". MUCH BETTER
Anyway, this whole discussion reminded me of a quick anecdote that I will share with you.
The horrors of being in 2nd grade:
When I was in 2nd grade, the school psychologist guy (who was a complete psycho himself) came and talked to our class. The topic he happened to be covering that day was ADD and ADHD. It was after this lecture that I was tested and affirmed as an ADD kid, but that's not the point of this story. This creepy man, let's call him Sir Sanchez tried to explain what ADD was. He told the class to think of Winnie the Pooh. He told us that Tigger had very dramatic Attetion Defecit Disorder.
WHO THE HELL TELLS KIDS THAT THEIR CHILDHOOD IDOL IS DYSFUNCTIONAL?! Anyway, just thought you should know how some douchebag psychologist guy ruined Tigger for me.
Love you guys.
I love Tigger. Don't be down. That boy knew how to bounce. And the world needs the daring bouncers amid all the depressed Eyores, slow Winnie "ther" Poohs, timid Piglets and over-intellectualized Owls out there. Stupid psychologist man.
Jennifer D. Klein
Jan 22, 2010 at 11:50 PM