Good friends, quaint poem
It was wonderful to have my good friend Germs in town this week. Everytime I see him, I marvel at how ageless he looks. And if I close my eyes, I can almost swear we are back in our NUS days when we traded stupid jokes, mugged together in the claustrophobic tutorial room at the Science Faculty and agonized over which canteen to go to for our lunch and dinner.Now we're a lot older, less innocent, even less carefree perhaps? But the times we had spent, each of us finding our own path to tread, penning different narratives for our respective lives, had eventually culminated in Germs seeking his own happiness in a land far away. We are separated by several oceans, but on those times when we meet, the familiarity and ease in which we settle down to talk, never fails to make me wistful and yearning for more of such times.
And now, as you traverse the miles back to your home again, with your beloved, I wish both of you many joyful days in your sprawling new home. We will meet next year, hopefully in Manado, ya?
* * * * * * * * *
My daughter L has just written a poem for her English class. She said it's supposed to be a poem about Feelings, although when I read it, it didn't really look like it.
Title: My colour Yellow!
The sun is yellow,
I feel yellow.
The flower and sun and fish are all yellow.
Yellow, yellow, yellow.
All I see is yellow.
I have a pen and it is yellow.
Yellow pen, yellow fish, yellow sun
Yellow flower, yellow book, yellow ball.
All the things in my house are yellow.
Oh no! My big house is all yellow!
I see in the sky, it is yellow
When I look at you, you are yellow.
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I guess only a mother can appreciate a quaint poem like this and publish it in her blog. My girl's first poem, at 7 years old. I think I only started poetry writing when I was 11. Way to go, girl!
posted by trisha @ 10:15 PM
8 Comments:
This is how very young children represent the world in art (or poetry).
Here, she has probably selected the colour yellow to represent a particular feeling, and her description of how everything is yellow conveys the idea that when she has that feeling, she views everything in a particular way.
You can ask her to tell you what she means by these lines:
"Oh no! My big house is all yellow!
I see in the sky, it is yellow
When I look at you, you are yellow."
It may mean that she is using yellow to represent a mood that in some way is not a pleasant mood. Yellow colours her entire world, although she wishes it were not so (hence the "Oh No!").
Or it may be that this is the moment when she crosses back from metaphor to reality, and playfully expresses mock dismay at the idea that her house and the person ("you") could literally be yellow.
Interesting follow-on activities:
- You could ask her to paint a picture using colours to express her moods
- You could ask her to write another poem entitled "Blue" and another poem entitled "Red" or something. Not necessarily about feelings - leave it up to her.
- You could ask her to tell you what moods different colours mean to her - eg she might associate "Red" with love or anger; "Green" with jealousy or life etc
wow!
hack with professional judgement. I think it is a pretty good, a good reflection of her feelings as if the world is monochrome to her.
its a strange phenomenon. when we're young, we yearn to be older so we can do grown-up stuff. and when we have grow up, we yearn to be young again, reminiscing abt our childhood days.
nice poem by your daughter, btw. perhaps you can encourage her to write more poems? :)
Yes, it was really fun to catch up again & to impress u on my agelessness. ;)
But, seriously, think abt it, everytime we meet, it's when i just return from my diving trip/holidays - with my batteries freshly recharged.
The stay in SG was too short but sigh...everyone was busy.
When i read L's poem, i was thinking along the line of what gilbert wrote (OK , not so "chim" perhaps).
Then i thot, hey... maybe L is a synesthete. Most Synesthete are female anyway. Synesthesia: usually a mixing of stimuli & sensory perceptions, egs are seeing letters or numbers or hearing music tones in
colours. I shall not pretend to know anything abt this, only knows it exist & JUST in case u are getting worried, its nothing to worry abt. There are cases of artists who have such beautiful pictures becoz of their "capabilities".
On 3rd thot, L's just talented beyond our comprehension.
No, I don't think so. If it was, then in her poem she would be expressing things that she experiences through touch, hearing and/or smell as being yellow. For example, she would say:
"I heard your voice and it was yellow"
or "I touched the pen and it was yellow".
However, here she is describing things she sees as being yellow.
Hi Gilbert & Germs:
Thanks for the insightful analysis of my daughter's poem.
Gilbert, I like your suggestions for follow-up activities and will try some of them this March holidays. Hopefully, she'll come up with something interesting and I'll post them in my blog.
I've never thought of my girl as "talented beyond comprehension" but looking at her drawings (she can draw very well), and now her poem, I am beginning to sense she has some aesthetic talent that I can nurture.
Ensui: Yes I certainly will encourage her to write more. I will also start introducing her to good poems too.
Gilbert: What's a good poetry book I can get for children? (besides nursery rhymes)
Yes, it's a beautiful poem. The sort that'd make a mother really proud and a brother weep for joy. It is scary how all these bright flashes are eventually trampled upon by study and assessment. How you must feel the need to cup your hands about this talent to fend off the evils of a grades-churning system.
Haha, your daughter's really sweet. :D
Hello there, when I read your daughter's poem, I felt this rush of joy, cos it felt as though she was expressing something I would say! (very strange, but true)
Yellow just so happens to be my favourite colour, and just like her, sometimes I see everything in Yellow. Like seeing everything in yellow is my version of looking at the world through rose-tinted glasses.
I think what she's trying to say is that from her point of view, the world is a happy, joyous place.
Do ask her about it to confirm. Something in my gut tells me she's one happy kid bursting to express it in poetry.
-Marianne
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