That's Keats. I can show him the poet... actually two of them... Today my offspring were both up to workshop their pieces, and both did a bang up job. It's really hard to read your work to a group of peers and then graciously sit there while your ideas are kidhandled. And let me say that these workshoppers are NOT shy. They are smart and opinionated and completely confident in their own ideas. In fact, I hurt The Girl's feelings on the way home today from workshop because apparently I was too generous in my compliments of the other kids. She asked if I liked them better. The true answer would have been, "Sometimes." But I went with the more true answer: "I don't love any kids in the world more than you," (even if other kids passionately play the piano without being nagged to practice, are socially more savvy, are beyond articulate, and in general seem more cheerful/grateful and less whiney). I also pointed out that my kids are freakin' brilliant poets.
This is what they brought to the workshop:
Polar Playing Pups
In the icy polar waters
harbor seals love to play.
Fluffy harbor seal pups
on the ice drinking milk from their mother.
Harbor seal pups are as white as cotton.
Adult harbor seals are big grey chocolate chip cookies.
(Are you kidding me? Milk and cookies? Referencing the familiar feelings of hearth and home and connecting them to icy polar waters -- a seal's definition of hearth and home... Brilliant.)
The Wet Figure
The mossy, grey and giant
figure of a dam stands tall at
the end of a giant lake
It is the croton
in the middle of mountains,
and trees
flowing water
in a graceful way
(IF you haven't seen the Croton Dam you may not know how spot-on this little gem of a poem is. We talked about the clever shift -- setting up the reader to think it's a person or monster...)
So, still rough drafts, but I'm pretty sure that Keats would have seen the crackling sparks of kindred poets. And if he didn't I would have had to kick him in the shin. Consumption, or no, you do not question the giftedness of a mama bear's cubs...
