Tue Feb 02, 2021 8:26 am
Oh my. What little treasure has just appeared here?
After a few reads ... and I just want to put my arms around this little Pip and tell her it’s going to be ok. Maybe not at the Beginning, or in the Middle, or at the End, but at least Sometimes. And that she’s not alone feeling like this. Perhaps some others are better at pretending. Or suppressing.
And that if they do seem to thrive in this crazy world, like Latonya Wanamaker, it might be because they lack the sensitivity to experience life in its complexity. And whilst that might shelter them from some pain, it will also deprive them much of its beauty.
But sadly we can’t hug lil’ Pip to our bosom.
So it just clenches our heart as we read the poem and put a picture together from the jigsaw pieces of this super sensitive, introverted, sad little girl, in her home and at school.
There are many puzzle pieces in this poem that seem very personal and I struggle to decipher, - it would be wonderful to find out more, - but there is enough that I can understand to put a meaningful picture together.
The parts I loved in the poem:
The image of feeling like a toy soldier parents (teachers) arrange as they wish. The feeling of being imprisoned. The constantly bubbling resentment at being told what to do, where to be. The fervent need to be left alone, to have no demands put on her. The fleeting images of clothes and skin, and the meaningless woodwork toy. “The lady with the pale oval stare”. Such good description. “Join a circle now” - could be literal in a school setting but also metaphorical: fit in, be with everyone else as one link in the chain. Once you’re in the circle, it’s hard to break out again, and much harder to stay an observer rather than a participant - in activities that have no appeal.
This is The Beginning
Ground zero to an eternal ache for exit signs
This is particularly sad, as it suggests that the feeling of wanting to get the hell out of conformity is still a constant struggle for our Pip, probably all grown up now.
Julie - an older sister maybe? Trying to help Pip fit in, trying to raise her spirits.
Loved this line:
To talk weeping Humpty off the ledge
And with it comes the first big puzzle of the poem for me.
To say Pip’s name oh so slowly - to tame
Pip peers into The End (say it all together class) The Party Over
I feel Humpty is still Pip, a nursery rhyme character Pip identifies with. Julie is trying to lure Pip back from the proverbial edge, love the line break - to tame/Pip peers btw.
My puzzle is the bit in bracket, the “say it altogether class” and “The Party Over”. I think it is about our little Pip being so unhappy that she was contemplating what if she could just “not be”, but I wonder how the class/school comes back into the picture again. This is really heart wrenching.
The next verse is so expressive. The image of our little Pip forced to be in school, totally disengaged. The silly children’s wordgame ‘Hangman’ is another morbid metaphor for the poem’s dominant feeling of being constricted, ordered, forced, imprisoned, pushed to their limit. Step by step, like lines in the game of hangman when you don’t get something right.
There is a price to pay for every ‘mistake’.
Then after the school we have images of the home again, the patterns on the rug, the music.
I wonder what this means:
“Greens and mottled whites
Taken away from the sun”?
Then we get to a crescendo in the poem:
Faceless voices instructing
Voices down the hall leaving and leaving
An entire world disappearing
Muted by closing doors and the ticking clock
For me this is a complex mixture of ‘leave me alone’ and ‘why are you always leaving me alone’. A child who’s not really seen, whose needs are ignored.
The next verse, ‘The Middle’ for me speaks of our Pip attempting to find a compromise - trying to at least half fit in: not join a circle but a semi-circle that is a lot easier to slip out from, especially if you take the seat at the end. Works literally as much as metaphorically again. She finds some comfort in learning. And then the three words are again a puzzle: horse, ball, sock. The horse would make sense on its own, but with the other two words next to it, I wonder about the connection? Learning to read perhaps?
Latonya Wanamaker invites herself home
Her mouth a swarming of bees buzzing and buzzing
Carry me away now, Pip says to both feet
To small white socks with the lace edge flipped over
This might just be my favourite verse. Utterly brilliant. The contrast between the two children. The annoying overzealous nature of Latonya. Maybe even worse. Bees can sting you. She might have been mean too.
The guest you wish would leave already or you could escape somehow. The image of our little Pip wanting to run. Her little socks. Love it.
Shiny black patent leather through the back alley
Past Robbie’s grinning metallic blue bike
Past any point of recognition with no direction home
Free on folded wings all atwitch rather than aflutter
The first two lines are a puzzle again- especially next to each other, as the first line gives me an adult image whilst the bike takes us back to childhood.
Our Pip wants to run away from it all, and get ‘lost’, as ‘lost’ is better than being in ‘some kind of jail’. And you at least have a chance to be found. But her little wings are not yet ready to fly. Loved the ending, the last line is perfect.
Mz S, I loved this so much. I wonder if you could elaborate a little on the puzzles?
