Poems

Julia wrote a new poem book today, and that's not all.  She also held a session of school for Madeleine, in which Julia, the teacher, read the poems aloud and quizzed Madeleine on each and every one:

You can see how invested Madeleine is in this whole process.

(Baby Gaga was apparently a pupil as well.)

After each poem, Julia would say, "So, Madeleine, what did YOU hear in that poem?"  Madeleine would dutifully repeat a line or a set of words from the poem.  Julia would then call out to me, "Okay, and Courtney, what did YOU hear?"  I was practicing my flute at the time, in preparation for an upcoming concert this weekend, so I did my best to keep an ear cocked for each poem.  I totally blew it on one of the poems, however.  I realized, when teacher Julia called out to me, that I had not actually paid the least attention to the poem she had just read.  I took a stab at repeating some generic line that tends to appear in most of Julia's poems, but no such luck.

"Uh, here, Mom, let me READ it to you," she announced, coming into the living room to re-read the poem for me so that I could correctly answer her question.

I am not a good student.

How could I not have given my total, undivided attention to these captivating poems?  With as stimulating a title as she gave her collection, I should have been hooked from the start:

And surely, the title poem did NOT disappoint:

Yeah.  But all of WAT?  It certainly gives you something reflect upon.  I mean, all of five and all of six is all well and good, but seriously, isn't the deeper question posed here food for thought?  All of WAT?  As in wat is it all FOR?







Not to mention the etymological questions posed in this poem:

Hmm.  Heavy.  I have NEVER thought to ask myself that question.  IS Sunday for the sun or is it for Sunday?!?  I just can't wrap my head around it.  I'm now starting to question whether or not I truly exist.

And don't even get me STARTED on this one:

WOW.  The depth of this poem is beyond me.  She is me.  WOW.  And then to follow that up with "tow is my sister and I now."  I wonder, are she and her sister ALL of tow, or are they all of wat?

And then there's this final poem, which didn't make it into the collection, but stands on its own, entitled "Pink."  Thanks to an unfortunate spelling error in Julia's sounding-out, the connotation is made much less innocuous than intended:

My nose is pick.  See!

Boy, oh boy, Julia.  You're a poet, and you really do know it.