G is for the Great Gilly Hopkins

This was perhaps the first letter where I really, really had a hard time choosing what to do. It was between Gilly and Grimm’s fairy tales, as they both influenced me a lot, just in different ways.  So… I’ll probably do a bonus blog all about fairy tales and mythology once this challenge is over.

Anyway, The Great Gilly Hopkins, by Katherine Paterson gave me so many different things.  The book is about Gilly, who’s in foster care and goes to live with Maime Trotter, a fat woman with a huge heart, and William Ernest, who’s a younger child in the home and a bit of a sissy.  Gilly is mean, and like most foster children who’ve been moved from home to home and been promised things that never happened, is hardened, focused on her fantasy mother, who she believes will save her.

When she gets to Trotter’s home, she does everything she can to escape.  But Trotter never gives up on her, and Gilly eventually falls in love and realizes what family really means.

Gilly taught me that people who act mean often do so because they have a story, and that hard shell is mostly just armor.  She taught me that when you fight against something too much, you might get something you didn’t bargain for.  (Gilly eventually goes to live with her biological grandmother, and then realizes that she wanted to stay with Trotter.)

This book also introduced me to my love of poetry.  It contains an excerpt of Ode, by William Wordsworth.  I didn’t know it was an excerpt, of course, and it was the first poem that I copied into a notebook and then memorized.  Imagine my surprise when I eventually located the poem and found out that it was about four times longer than I thought!  I can still recite the excerpt, and it’s still one of my favorites.

I didn’t understand it when I read it (I think I was maybe 11 or 12 at the time), but the poem had a profound effect on me emotionally.  I felt it reverberate through my heart in a way that very poems ever have.

I drive my critique partner crazy.  He’s firmly in the camp of not adding quotes, poetry, or song lyrics from other people’s work into stories.  He feels that the author shouldn’t have to borrow emotional impact.

I do it though, because I remember how, without this book, I probably never would have read this poem.  This book is the first of many to not just introduce me to the world in the book, but to broaden my universe beyond it.

Thus began a life-long love affair with poetry.  It set me on the path for an empathetic life.  Years later, when I worked for CPS and saw hurt and emotionally injured children come through, I remembered this book, remembered Gilly, and it helped me to remember that everyone has a story.

That’s a lot of influence for 148 pages of book.

“Once the tugboat takes you out to the ocean liner, you got to get all the way on board. Can’t straddle both decks.”
— Katherine Patterson

Happy Poem in Your Pocket Day!

Tomorrow, April 24th, is National Poem in Your Pocket Day.  The idea is to have a poem in your pocket (duh!) that you share with others during the day.  I think high school can ruin poetry appreciation with all the picking apart and analyzing language.  I say that if you like it, it’s good.  And there doesn’t need to be much more to it than that.

Here’s a link to Poets.org in case you’d like to find something different.  Or search for your favorite poet online, like Emily Dickenson or Robert Frost.

One of my favorite poets is William Wordsworth, from the 18th century.  I’ve included a link to Ode, my all time favorite poem, at over 200 lines long.

Here’s another of my favorites:

Dust if You Must

-Author Unknown

Dust if you must, but wouldn’t it be better
To paint a picture, or write a letter,
Bake a cake, or plant a seed;
Ponder the difference between want and need?

Dust if you must, but there’s not much time,
With rivers to swim, and mountains to climb;
Music to hear, and books to read;
Friends to cherish, and life to lead.

Dust if you must, but the world’s out there
With the sun in your eyes, and the wind in your hair;
A flutter of snow, a shower of rain,
This day will not come around again.

Dust if you must, but bear in mind,
Old age will come and it’s not kind.
And when you go (and go you must)
You, yourself, will make more dust.

 

Poetry

“Easy reading is damn hard writing.” Nathaniel Hawthorne

When I was a kid, I loved poetry. I read Wordsworth, Shakespeare’s sonnets, Emily Dickenson. I’m not sure when I stopped reading poetry, but I suspect that it was around the time we started analyzing it in high school.

From the perspective of adulthood, I understand why we were analyzing it. Poetry generally has complex layers of language that can be discerned on deeper analysis and exploration.

Just because I get it doesn’t mean I agree with it. To me, poetry was about emotion, and how it made me feel. Analyzing poetry felt the same way criticizing art did. It felt like the magic trick was being revealed. I know magic isn’t real, but that doesn’t mean I’m looking for the sleight of hand or the trapdoor. I want magic to be real, in the same way I want poetry and art to have that layer of magic.

As a writer, it’s important to understand how technique and language create that magic. If we’re going to write, we need to understand. Yet in my high school classes, our goal wasn’t to create anything. I still enjoy writing really bad poetry, and I don’t understand how to create anything like the magical ones I most enjoy.

I’ve started reading poetry again, partly because I think it’s important, but also because it was something I enjoyed so much, once upon a time. I had a notebook in which I faithfully transcribed some of my favorite poems, and I read them so many times that I memorized some of them.
“Ode,” by William Wordsworth was my favorite poem growing up, and I’ve included a link to it so that you can enjoy too.

Do you like poetry? What’s your favorite poem?