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BROMWELL ELEMENTARY SCHOOL (214) Telephone: Mr. Jonathan Wolfer, Principal |
Afterword to A Poem Ran Down the StreetThis is my slightly-revised Afterword to A Poem Ran Down the Street: A Collection of Poetry by Bromwell Students, Volume Three. It was published in 2006. If you have gotten this far, kids, you’ve probably finished the book. Is there anything else to be said, then, or at least to be shared through the written word? Yes, there is something else, something about poetry in general and truth in particular. Have you ever played “Truth or Dare?” It’s a very popular game among kids today, just as it was when I was a boy. The truth is very important to children. In the classroom, kids are constantly striving to understand the truths that are inside all learning. Is division really multiplication backwards? Does i always come before e, except after c? Who actually discovered America? The truth is an important matter on the playground, too. Did that one kid really get the other kid out in four-square? Are those other two kids over on the swings really best friends? Did that whole gang of kids out there in the field really, truly miss the teacher’s call to come back into the classroom? Such puzzles present themselves to us every day. Teachers try to help kids find out about the truth, and so do parents. Kids help each other, too, of course. In fact, while grown-ups do a pretty good job with the truth, everyone knows that kids are better. Whenever I become awkward or confused in my classroom, I can always (fortunately) count on a kid to raise his or her hand and say, “Excuse me, Mr. Replogle, but that just didn’t make any sense!” Making sense is what being a school is all about – almost. For there are some truths that cannot be easily shared. This is a great mystery for all of us, children and adults alike. There are some things that you just can’t say straight out. If you do, the truth in them just floats away, like bubbles on a light breeze, or like smoke rushing between your fingers. Or like a sliver of soap in the water of your bathtub! It’s better if you come at some truths sideways. That’s why Emily Dickinson, one of our greatest poets, wrote, “Tell the truth but tell it slant.” Poems share the kind of truths that aren’t easy to see right away, or to say right away, either. The best poems come at you sideways, slantways, and they offer you the kinds of truths you might not see clearly the first time. That is why poetry can seem so magical and full of life. So you haven’t really finished this book, after all. You can go back and re-read these poems, which don’t say everything the first time or perhaps even the second. The poems here are still alive and lively, and still full of magic. You’ll find something you didn’t find the first time, I promise. Being kids, you are good at that. Back to Mr. R's Portfolio or back to A-6: Mr. Replogle's Fourth Grade Classroom |
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