The Life of an 8th Grader: Updated

A Poem by sav

i wrote this shortly after i moved to colorado. i only found out we were moving two days before it happened.

My life

Has now been rearranged.

I was forced to leave it all behind.

I'm the new kid

With four days left for me,

Five for my friends back home.

God,

If only

I made my life

Stay the same.

I was right when I said

8th grade is the year things will soon change

When you least expect it.

I still wish
It was last year.

Then I wouldn't have moved yet.

Back to the update:

I lost even more friends.

Cut off more loose ends.

And I feel even worse.

My perfect grades are gone.

I regret going on those dates.

I miss last year a lot.

© 2022 sav

Author's Note

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Reviews

Aura

Grade 8, the year of change, soon going to high school... yikes I remember that time, it was a scary feeling like I never thought I'd reach that point of my life... and here we are many years later. I feel sorry that you realized you were moving 2 days before you had to, that sucks more time should've been given to say goodbye to the friends you grew up with, who you might never see again, which is really depressing. We constantly wish to go back to better days and years but that's life, time keeps on moving, nothing we can do except look forward, and hopefully, high-school and everything treats you well, it'll take time to adjust but you'll get through it. I can relate to this poem alot

Posted 2 Years Ago

JayG

Well, you did ask...though that’s a good thing. Just bear in mind that nothing I’m about to say has any relationship to your talent, your potential, or even your writing skill. In reality, it has to do with a misunderstanding, what I like to call The Great Misunderstanding, because we all leave our school days with it: We think we were taught to write. And so, have what we need to write poetry and fiction.

We did learn a skill called writing, but…. Think about your writing assignments. Most were for reports and essays, right? How many poems did they assign, compared to those? Damn few. Right?

Why? Because the entire purpose of public education, begun at the start of the Industrial revolution, is to provide employers with a pool of potential workers who possess a useful (to them) set of skills, commonly called the three R’s: Reading, Writing, & aRithmatic. And what kind of writing do most employers require? Reports, papers, and letters, which is pretty much what you’re perfecting in your schoolwork. Problem is, that’s nonfiction, and its goal is to inform, clearly and concisely. It’s fact-based and author-centric…just like this poem. So you’re doing everything you’ve been taught to do. And if your goal was to inform the reader….

But it’s not. Poetry, like fiction, has entertaining the reader as a goal. And how many strangers will be entertained by learning some details of the life of someone they don’t know? If you make that person real to them, though, and make them feel they’re living it as you, they might be. But, how much time have your teachers spend on how to do that? In fact, there’s more to it than just entertaining the reader, because to do that, you must manipulate the reader’s emotions, and make them feel and care, not just be better informed on your life. And your teachers spent zero time on that, and never will address it, because skill in poetry isn't useful to an employer.

Remember, they offer degrees centered on poetry, as well as on fiction. And you have to assume that at least some of that’s taught there is necessary. Right?

Kind of a bummer, I know, but my point is that you'll never fix the problem that you don’t see as being one. And this one is fixable, so I thought you'd want to know.

You want to write poetry. That's great. And what you’re missing isn’t talent, it’s that your talent needs to be trained, just as it would were you trying to write a film script, or, to golf with skill. The subject changes, but the solution is the same: since your teachers aren’t going to give it to you, go out and dig it up, yourself.

Writing poetry requires a VERY different approach to writing, so your existing skills are going to get in the way, but there’s no reason you can’t learn those skills, you just need to know where to find them. And I can help with that.

And the good news? You get to read some great poems as part of it. And there’s one that I especially like: The Cremation of Sam McGee. It will show you the power that properly placed words can have, and may have you tapping your feet to the rhythm of the piece before the end. It definitely will make you smile at the end.

You can find it on the Shmoop site: https://www.shmoop.com/cremation-sam-mcgee/poem-text.html

And after you read it, turn the following pages to see an analysis of how it was done, and what those tricks can do for you.

In fact, that site is a gold mine of information on many subjects, and can help in school.

When you’re finished with that poem, moust the three lines at the top left to get a menu. Select Student. Then, mouse the button next to the search window, and you can select Poetry. Lots and lots of successful poems on the site, analyzed deeply to show why and how they worked so well.

You might also want to read the excerpt, on Amazon, to Stephen Fry’s, The Ode Less Traveled. His focus is on rhyming poetry, but what he has to say about the flow of words is fascinating, and explains why Sam McGee has such a stong beat. It’s useful knowledge for any writer.

And finally, download Mary Oliver’s, A Poetry Handbook. It’s one of the best, and in it you’ll learn things you never suspected, like, there are more vowels than your teachers told you about.
https://yes-pdf.com/book/1596

So… this was a lot more than you expected, and in a different direction from what you hoped. But you now know some things that your teachers don’t (though you’ll never convince them of that 😆).

But you did ask, and I think you’ll find the learning a lot like going backstage at a professional theater for the first time. So give at a try. But whatever you do, hang in there, and keep on writing. It never gets easier. But after a while, we do become confused on a higher level.

Jay Greenstein
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/the-grumpy-old-writing-coach/

Posted 2 Years Ago

We did learn a skill called writing, but…. Think about your writing assignments. Most were for reports and essays, right? How many poems did they assign, compared to those? Damn few. Right?

Why? Because the entire purpose of public education, begun at the start of the Industrial revolution, is to provide employers with a pool of potential workers who possess a useful (to them) set of skills,  commonly called the three R’s: Reading, Writing, & aRithmatic. And what kind of writing do most employers require? Reports, papers, and letters, which is pretty much what you’re perfecting in your schoolwork. Problem is, that’s nonfiction, and its goal is to inform, clearly and concisely. It’s fact-based and author-centric…just like this poem. So you’re doing everything you’ve been taught to do. And if your goal was to inform the reader….

But it’s not. Poetry, like fiction, has entertaining the reader as a goal. And how many strangers will be entertained by learning some details of the life of someone they don’t know? If you make that person real to them, though, and make them feel they’re living it as you, they might be. But, how much time have your teachers spend on how to do that? In fact, there’s more to it than just entertaining the reader, because to do that, you must manipulate the reader’s emotions, and make them feel and care, not just be better informed on your life. And your teachers spent zero time on that, and never will address it, because skill in poetry isn't useful to an employer.

Remember, they offer degrees centered on poetry, as well as on fiction. And you have to assume that at least some of that’s taught there is necessary. Right?

Kind of a bummer, I know, but my point is that you'll never fix the problem that you don’t see as being one. And this one is fixable, so I thought you'd want to know.

You want to write poetry. That's great. And what you’re missing isn’t talent, it’s that your talent needs to be trained, just as it would were you trying to write a film script, or, to golf with skill. The subject changes, but the solution is the same: since your teachers aren’t going to give it to you, go out and dig it up, yourself.

Writing poetry requires a VERY different approach to writing, so your existing skills are going to get in the way, but there’s no reason you can’t learn those skills, you just need to know where to find them. And I can help with that.

And the good news? You get to read some great poems as part of it. And there’s one that I especially like: The Cremation of Sam McGee. It will show you the power that properly placed words can have, and may have you tapping your feet to the rhythm of the piece before the end. It definitely will make you smile at the end.

You can find it on the Shmoop site: https://www.shmoop.com/cremation-sam-mcgee/poem-text.html

And after you read it, turn the following pages to see an analysis of how it was done, and what those tricks can do for you.

In fact, that site is a gold mine of information on many subjects, and can help in school.

When you’re finished with that poem, moust the three lines at the top left to get a menu. Select Student. Then, mouse the button next to the search window, and you can select Poetry. Lots and lots of successful poems on the site, analyzed deeply to show why and how they worked so well.

You might also want to read the excerpt, on Amazon, to Stephen Fry’s, The Ode Less Traveled. His focus is on rhyming poetry, but what he has to say about the flow of words is fascinating, and explains why Sam McGee has such a stong beat. It’s useful knowledge for any writer.

And finally, download Mary Oliver’s, A Poetry Handbook. It’s one of the best, and in it you’ll learn things you never suspected,  like, there are more vowels than your teachers told you about.
https://yes-pdf.com/book/1596

So… this was a lot more than you expected, and in a different direction from what you hoped. But you now know some things that your teachers don’t (though you’ll never convince them of that 😆).

But you did ask, and I think you’ll find the learning a lot like going backstage at a professional theater for the first time. So give at a try. But whatever you do, hang in there, and keep on writing. It never gets easier. But after a while, we do become confused on a higher level.

Jay Greenstein
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/the-grumpy-old-writing-coach/

Rating /100