I have found that over the last several weeks, my mind has been racing with much information and novelty, and that this hasn’t been very conducive to poetic experimentation (remember this reflection about the importance of idleness for creativity?). So, this past week, I asked my 9 year old to help me. On our fridge, we have a wide array of magnetic words that we sometimes use to make up everyday poems, or poems of the everyday (and occasionally give each other some rather enigmatic hints). I asked my son to contribute to my inquiry blog with a poem of his own, and this was the result:

“Puppys [sic] can dance beneath the sun’s comforting song and look”.

This is an adorable poem. First, because puppies. Second, because it uses both personification (i.e. the sun’s “song”: a non-human object being given human attributes) and synesthesia, by blending senses: the sun is something we experience mostly through our eyes (as light) or on our skin (as warmth/heat), so vision and touch are the senses it evokes. But here, it’s invited into the poem through hearing in the form of a song – synesthesia. My favourite part about this poem, however, is the very end. Let me draw your attention to it:

After searching for the word “look” for quite a while, my son found a pretty creative way to problem-solve: he made one. He didn’t tell me about it or ask for help, I simply saw it when he was done with the poem. Yes, I was a proud mamãe just then. I think this is the most poetic part of the whole poem, the fact that when faced with a missing word, my son didn’t give up, but rather made up his own.

As if this weren’t enough to keep my parenting bucket full for a while, on Sunday, my son was taking a little too long to fold and put away his clothes, one of his weekly chores (no, it does not go smoothly, and yes, I have to avert my eyes to keep from cringing at the folding skills). When he finally came down, he said: “sorry, mamãe, I had to stop to write a poem” (cue my reaction: 😲). This was the poem that this 9 year old child came up with, unprompted:

“When all else fails, can love prevail? When the world seems dark and full of despair hope is not lost, love can win”

I can’t even. I’m not going to comment on the content of the message, because it’s obvious that I have won motherhood (joke). But did you see how he used that comma up there? So beautifully placed 😍 (anyone who knows me well knows that few things give me more satisfaction than good syntax and punctuation).

That’s it for today. Perhaps for next week I will see how I can delegate the heavy lifting for this project to my 4 year old. Cheers!