A couple of poems...

[Bookworm Beauty]

I wrote these about a year ago and just found them. I have a huge binder of poems but I'll share a few here. Let me know what you think of them.

Miracles
As I sit under the stars,
I wonder about mars.

Is there water or life,
Is it evil or is it nice?

Maybe there is a cure for cancer,
is there Santa or Prancer?

I wonder if there is peace,
or happiness for all at least?

Can we turn stone into gold,
Can we make things not so old?

Is there a way to be free,
to not be judged for being me?

Is there such things as miracles or not,
is my wish for a perfect world shot?

- Jessica Mary Noland (Age: 14)


If
If the world stoped turning,
would hell stop burning?

If there were no plants,
would there still be ants?

If there was no love,
would there be a heaven above?

If there was no art,
would we be so smart?

If there were no flowers,
would we still have so much power?

If there was no God,
wouldn't the earth be odd?

If there was no family,
I wonder how things would be.

- Jessica Mary Noland (Age: 14)

 

[novella]

Pointless Wonder

A question has the idea of an answer on its lip
and the question pushes the answer, trying to make it tip.
The way the heron sails through the sky,
its folded neck a prow against the breeze
There is no question there for me. It sails on.
Mercury, arsenic, sumac, lead. The same carbon
and oxygen of which I am made can strike me down.
These poisons are in my nature. So?
The wonder is in waking again. Do not bring god into this.
The wonder is in this fragile choice of mine
To stay in the safe egg of life and breathe on
While the heron sails over.

 

[Shade]

Bookworm Beauty, you should be careful about putting your full name and age out in public on internet forums. If it's too late to edit your post, you can ask one of the moderators (Ice, Halo, mehastings or Wabbit) to do it for you.

 

[novella]

That's good advice, Shade. But maybe she's a little old man.

 

[Bookworm Beauty]

I get that all the time. I've asked my parents about it and my Dad is one of those internet specialist type of people and he said it was ok if you were putting it to credit something just don't put where you live or any other personal information. I understand that even that little bit of information puts me at risk but I'm willing to take that risk to credit my work.

 

[Stewart]

Your age, to be fair, is unimportant when it comes to literary talent. Some have it in their teens, others wait until they are in their sixties before recognition comes their way. So, the I'm only fourteen card is never playable.

 

[muggle]

Your age, to be fair, is unimportant when it comes to literary talent. Some have it in their teens, others wait until they are in their sixties before recognition comes their way. So, the I'm only fourteen card is never playable.

I would have to disagree with part of that statement. It implies that at age 14 there will not be any improvement in the talent.

 

[novella]

I would have to disagree with part of that statement. It implies that at age 14 there will not be any improvement in the talent.

No, I don't think Stewart is implying that at all. More that saying "I'm only 14, but I STILL did this" implies that being 14 means you can have mediocre work and still call it good. The laws of quality apply across the board. Sure, improvement is possible, but why make excuses if you're not there yet?

 

[muggle]

No, I don't think Stewart is implying that at all. More that saying "I'm only 14, but I STILL did this" implies that being 14 means you can have mediocre work and still call it good. The laws of quality apply across the board. Sure, improvement is possible, but why make excuses if you're not there yet?

And I will also respectfully disagree with your statement. Stating an age just as well could mean that the person is saying that their work is very good and especially at an early age, and they are proud of their talent and quality of the work.

 

[Stewart]

Age should not matter a jot when determining what is good and what is bad. novella certainly understood my statement. I'm not that good at enthymemes, muggle, so there was certainly no implication in the statement. I just don't think someone can write something and then defend it by their age. Ability comes before age.

 

[muggle]

And for the majority of people ability improves with age.

I posted a poem on another forum that was written by my 13 yr old granddaughter. I posted it because I was proud of her and thought the poem was extremely good, especially considering the fact that it was written by a 13 yr old who I am sure will get even better with her writing, as she has with everything else she has done.

My point in all this is that by pointing out a person's age does not necessarily mean a person is "defending" one's work but may be a way of showing pride in the work with the realization by most that it will only get better.

I don't know if I made any sense of this but I hope you see the point I am trying to make.

 

[novella]

Yeah, I get the point, of course. But would you say to the author, "that's very good," or would you say "that's very good for a 13 year old" or would you say "that's okay, but you're only 13 and you'll probably get better" or would you say "if you really want to be a poet, you ought to read a lot of poetry and read about form and the tropes of poetry. Your poem reminds me of Emily Dickinson, maybe you would like her work. Or maybe you would like Dylan Thomas, who also wrote about nature."

I know which of those I have chosen (in the context of my own life, I should add).

 

[Vespertilio91]

I'm only 15, but I would like my work to be compared to anybody's, no matter the age. I think talent has no age limit. So I actually agree with Stewart (Uh-oh, that's scary).

I do like your poems, but do think they need some work. They sound very clipped at the endings. There's some poetic word for it, I don't remember, but it makes the poem have trouble flowing. On Miracles, I would give you a 6.5 out of 10. On If, a 6 out of 10.

 

[Bookworm Beauty]

I didn't know my poetry would cause such a controversial matter to come up. I put my age there just to credit not to say that "well my work might not be that great because I'm only 14." I actually wrote these when I was just turning 13. I put my age there because whenever I read a "Chicken soup for the ____ Soul" they always have the authors name and age. Whatever you think I was implying with the age bit is false. I used it to credit my work. I do not believe that talent should be based by age at all. It should be based on the quality of the work.

 

[Doug Johnson]

"that's very good for a 13 year old"

Works for me. They let 13 year old soccer players compete against each other. That seems to make more sense to me than forcing them to compete against adults.

 

[Doug Johnson]

I didn't know my poetry would cause such a controversial matter

Everything is controversial here. I guess you're never too young to learn that no matter what you write, someone will hate it.

In my opinion, if you write, you're a writer. Why you write, what you hope to accomplish by writing, what you expect people to say about your writing and what you do when they don't, is entirely up to you.

 

[Stewart]

Works for me. They let 13 year old soccer players compete against each other. That seems to make more sense to me than forcing them to compete against adults.

You are comparing physical stuff with brain stuff. That's never going to work (except for you, obviously).

 

[muggle]

Yeah, I get the point, of course. But would you say to the author, "that's very good," or would you say "that's very good for a 13 year old" or would you say "that's okay, but you're only 13 and you'll probably get better" or would you say "if you really want to be a poet, you ought to read a lot of poetry and read about form and the tropes of poetry. Your poem reminds me of Emily Dickinson, maybe you would like her work. Or maybe you would like Dylan Thomas, who also wrote about nature."

I know which of those I have chosen (in the context of my own life, I should add).

You are comparing physical stuff with brain stuff. That's never going to work (except for you, obviously).

Actually, I prefer comparing to the kids peer group. Five yr olds against five yr olds. Thirteen yr olds against thirteen yr olds. comparing a thirteen yr old against a College Graduate somehow doesn't seem cricket to me.

Since we are talking 'brain" stuff I would think 99.9% of students would fail if you were a language/art teacher of, say, 8th grade students.

 

[steffee]

Actually, I prefer comparing to the kids peer group. Five yr olds against five yr olds. Thirteen yr olds against thirteen yr olds. comparing a thirteen yr old against a College Graduate somehow doesn't seem cricket to me.

Since we are talking 'brain" stuff I would think 99.9% of students would fail if you were a language/art teacher of, say, 8th grade students.

How old are 8th grade students?

Muggle, I can understand why you're proud of your granddaughter and feel that Stewart's and Novella's comments are a personal attack, but I'm sure they aren't. I've read your granddaughters poem and it's very good. It would be very good at whatever age she'd written it, and it's likely, compared to other thirteen year olds, it's far superior and shows her talent.

But, to quote Novella here again, what does "it's a very good poem for a thirteen year old" suggest to you? Does it not imply that for a thirteen year old it's very good, but would be average had she not been thirteen? What if her talent doesn't increase with age then?

You said earlier, Muggle, that everyone knows ability increases with age. How is this so? Obviously, you learn more as you get older, and the more you practise anything, say, crosswords or karate, the better you will be, but like everything, you can only go so far without a talent for whatever it is.

As a complete aside, I once heard somewhere that by fifteen you already have all the creativity you ever will (although some obviously take a while to realise it, others need more work in practising it, others need to mature enough to even sit down with a pen or whatever).

 

[Stewart]

Since we are talking 'brain" stuff I would think 99.9% of students would fail if you were a language/art teacher of, say, 8th grade students.

I'll file that in my book under mild personal attacks.

If you have nothing to say then I wish you would just let things pass, especially since I was talking to Big Doug. That's twice, now, in this thread that you have steered the conversation off in your own twisted direction. Of course, it hasn't been on-topic since it started so perhaps a mod could split this into a thread for the poems and one for a discussion of how age matters not a jot to the output of talent.