CONNECT WITH YOUR GRANDCHILDREN: LESSON #7

CONNECT WITH YOUR GRANDCHILDREN: LESSON #7

 

Hi William.

Happy Friday, May 8, only ten days to go for my birthday and your haiku! How are you today? Are you getting BORED? Me too.

 

So, I introduced you to one of my favourite poets, Billy Collins. I hope you like him. He is very clever. You think that you are reading something ordinary and then suddenly, BANG! he gets profound before you know it and he hits you with something deep. You start to look at the world in a different way.

 

Today for fun, we examine what our dogs must be thinking when they look at us.

 

Billy Collins imagines the inner lives of two very different companions. It’s a charming short talk, perfect for taking a break and dreaming …

 

Watch-

https://www.ted.com/talks/billy_collins_two_poems_about_what_dogs_think_probably?language=en

 

Let me know when done.

 

 “A Dog On His Master”  and “I Am The Dog You Put To Sleep”

 

Tell me what you think of his two poems.

 

Which did you like best? Why?

 

 

Okay, here’s one about getting old and much more theme of loss.

Read -

 

Forgetfulness

 

The name of the author is the first to go

followed obediently by the title, the plot,

the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel

which suddenly becomes one you have never read,

never even heard of,

 

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor

decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,

to a little fishing village where there are no phones.

 

Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye

and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,

and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,

 

something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,

the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.

 

Whatever it is you are struggling to remember

it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,

not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.

 

It has floated away down a dark mythological river

whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,

well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those

who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.

 

No wonder you rise in the middle of the night

to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.

No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted

out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.

 

 

Some Days

 

Billy Collins - 1941-

 

Some days I put the people in their places at the table,

bend their legs at the knees,

if they come with that feature,

and fix them into the tiny wooden chairs.

 

All afternoon they face one another,

the man in the brown suit,

the woman in the blue dress,

perfectly motionless, perfectly behaved.

 

But other days, I am the one

who is lifted up by the ribs,

then lowered into the dining room of a dollhouse

to sit with the others at the long table.

 

Very funny,

but how would you like it

if you never knew from one day to the next

if you were going to spend it

 

striding around like a vivid god,

your shoulders in the clouds,

or sitting down there amidst the wallpaper,

staring straight ahead with your little plastic face?

 

 

What do you think he is saying?

 

 

Here’s another poem that features a dog!

 

Read-

 

Another Reason Why I Don’t Keep A Gun In The House

 

by Billy Collins

 

The neighbors' dog will not stop barking.

He is barking the same high, rhythmic bark

that he barks every time they leave the house.

They must switch him on on their way out.

 

The neighbors' dog will not stop barking.

I close all the windows in the house

and put on a Beethoven symphony full blast

but I can still hear him muffled under the music,

barking, barking, barking,

 

and now I can see him sitting in the orchestra,

his head raised confidently as if Beethoven

had included a part for barking dog.

 

When the record finally ends he is still barking,

sitting there in the oboe section barking,

his eyes fixed on the conductor who is

entreating him with his baton

 

while the other musicians listen in respectful

silence to the famous barking dog solo,

that endless coda that first established

Beethoven as an innovative genius.

 

Do you think this is funny? When you hear a dog barking, maybe you will remember this poem.

 

So Billy Collins takes something that is annoying and playfully uses his imagination to make it funny.

 

 

Okay, let’s look at what he thinks of adolescence!

Read -

 

On Turning Ten

 

by Billy Collins

 

 

The whole idea of it makes me feel

like I'm coming down with something,

something worse than any stomach ache

or the headaches I get from reading in bad light--

a kind of measles of the spirit,

a mumps of the psyche,

a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul.

 

You tell me it is too early to be looking back,

but that is because you have forgotten

the perfect simplicity of being one

and the beautiful complexity introduced by two.

But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit.

At four I was an Arabian wizard.

I could make myself invisible

by drinking a glass of milk a certain way.

At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.

 

But now I am mostly at the window

watching the late afternoon light.

Back then it never fell so solemnly

against the side of my tree house,

and my bicycle never leaned against the garage

as it does today,

all the dark blue speed drained out of it.

 

This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,

as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.

It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends,

time to turn the first big number.

 

It seems only yesterday I used to believe

there was nothing under my skin but light.

If you cut me I could shine.

But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,

I skin my knees. I bleed.

 

 

Let me know when done

 

How does he feel about getting older?

 

How do you know it? What images does he use?

 

What do you think he misses the most?

 

He says he must say goodbye to his imaginary friends. How did you feel when you learned there was no Santa Claus?

 

What do the last two lines mean?

 

But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,

I skin my knees. I bleed.

 

There’s a new reality. There’s consequences for everything you do and say and even not do or say.

 

Okay, this poem examines a theme of loss that runs through a lot of writing - both poetry & prose. The loss of the magical thinking associated with childhood. Theo is in this stage - inventing things, songs, anything, and it’s totally magical and wonderful to observe it, and equally sad to see it go as we get older. Children are so creative at this stage because they have not learned any inhibitions. What’s an inhibition?

 

 

William,

 

I think song lyrics are often poetic.