Favourite Poetry of Old

* During this week's tutorial, the Prof asked who our favourite poet is. I don't actually have a favourite poet but quickly the title of a poem that meant so much to me only a decade ago came rushing back to me. I wanted soooo badly to share that poet's brilliance with the class, but sadly I was unable to remember the name of the poet who wrote the poem below.

I now know that the poet was Phyllis McGinely and the poem is Portrait of a Girl with Comic Book:

Thirteen's no age at all. Thirteen is nothing.
It is not wit, or powder on the face,
Or Wenesday matinee, or misses' clothing,
Or intellect, or grace.
Twelve has its tribal customs. But thirteen
Is neither boys in battered cars nor dolls.
Not Sara Crewe or movie magazine,
Or pennants on the walls.

Thirteen keeps diaries and tropical fish
(A month, at most); scorns jumpropes in the spring;
Could not, would fortune grant it, name its wish;
Wants nothing, everything;
Has secrets from itself, friends it despises;
Admits none or the terrors that it feels;
Own half a hundred masks but no disguises;
And walks upon its heels.

Thirteen's anomalous - not that, not this:
Not folded bud, or wave that laps a shore,
Or moth proverbial from the chrysalis.
Is the one age defeats the metaphor.
Is not a town, like childhood, strongly walled
But easily surrounded, in no city.
Nor, quitted once, can it be quite recalled -
Not even with pity.

* I was in grade 9, when I found this poem in our poetry book. I stumbled across it purely by accident while I was thumbing through the pages of the meager (compared to our text!) volume. I read the title and thought it cheesy at first, but as I began to read the poem I began to fall in love with it! Partly because the things said in it were true of the age but also because of the poem would not be covered in class.

* Not covering the poem in class was brilliant because that meant that the poem was mine alone to explore like an unchartered amazon rainforest. Making my way through the language like I would the dense tropical folliage. Never fearing the wild animals that came out at me in the shape of unfamiliar words for I could easily arm myself with the ultimate weapon to combat my naivity... the lexicon! As I blundered deeper into the rain forest, I became better acquinted with the wild life and the natives...rather native (ME!).

* The poem spoke to me in a way that helped me better understand the trouble that I was going through in trying to adjust to the ambigous pre-teen world. "Has secrets from itself, friends it dispises;/ Admits none of the terror that it feels." How true is that statement about being a teenager?! There have been moments that I have denied my feelings to myself because I didn't want to believe; hated the people that I called my friends but kept them close to me because I was petrified of being left alone in pre-teen land; told absolutely no one about all the self-doubt, and self-loathing that I was feeling.

* The poem also provided me with a sense of comfort similar to a mother's embrace, which I could have went home to ask for but hugs from mom just didn't seem as cool as they used to be. I felt comfort in knowing that someone else had been down the road I was approaching; McGinley travelled the bumby, winding, broken down path of adolescnece and was still around to tell the tale. Surely, I would be able to bumble my way down the road. Aiming for the next fork in the road (ie. turning fourteen as fast as possible!) and avoiding at all costs the pitfalls, snares and any bear traps that may pop out and snap off my leg.

* Ultimately, what the poem showed me what thirteen was not! "Thirteen's no age at all. Thirteen is nothing./ It is not wit, or powder on the face.../Or intellect of grace." McGinely demonstrated a narrow view, to use the word pesimistic would be an injustice, of the age. She showed that it was up to me to make my year of thirteen better. Did I accomplish that? No probably not! Was I better prepared for what happened during that year? Hell no! But that is what life and living are about. Accomplishing what one can, and making up the rest as you go along.

* It will be interesting to see which poem I pick for myself from the Norton. Will I chance upon it like I did McGinley's or will I need to search deeply for it. Will this new poem capture my frame of mind; feelings; and emotions like the above poem did for the next ten years to come? Only time will tell.

~ sv