The muse visited my daughter last night, as the social injustice of a particular pedogogical institution moved her to free verse. Without further ado, I present Athena’s first poem (edited for clarity; see the original in the photo above).
Homework
I hate Homework
Yes I do all kids
Do especially me
Kids have homework
Every [day] so give us a
Break let teachers do
Homework every day
And let them feel the pain.
And that is my poem called
Homework. Thank you.
After I read the poem, I asked Athena, “So, do you really hate homework?”
“Daddy, it’s just a poem,” she said.
We’ll be publishing her chapbook real soon now.
And then twelve years from now, Athena is in a Dayton coffee house dressed all in black with a nose ring reading a long screed about her…
stuff.
I’m just sayin’ she might have the coffee house poet in her is all.
Hey, somebody has to grade all that stuff. Tell Athena that, actually, teachers do lots more homework than she does!
In fact, after I praised her for her creativity, I pointed out that teacher indeed take lots of work home with them every day. She seemed surprised but eventually allowed that it would be so.
Nothing against teachers at all, but you may also want to point out to Athena that the teacher gets paid marginally better than she does for doing all that homework…
Weird coincidence. Here’s the daily photo at Dooce.com (http://www.dooce.com/archives/daily_photo/01_11_2006.html). This one is also a poem about homework, but with a science fiction twist.
Clearly, Mr. Scalzi has let his recent stint at editing go to his head. The original text clearly shows that Athena considered her work a pome, not a “poem”. If a master such as Neil Gaiman can call his works “pomes” (as exemplified by “Neil’s Thankyou Pome”, how can an artist of the manifest talent as Athena be denied the same privilege?
Hey, now. I presented the original. I left the author express herself fully. All I was doing was helping those folks who needed a step up to her genius.
It’s very Molesworth
I like pomes. Apples and pears are both good.
Heh. My junior year English teacher did all the homework right alongside us, every night. AND graded ours. AND devised new homework assignments and lesson plans for the following day.
I couldn’t have, tell ya that.
Kudos to Athena and her Pome. Bit of a goth streak showing up in line 8 there, I suspect.
(Oh, sorry, Jim. Didn’t mean to step on your post–don’t know how I missed that bit about the coffee house poet. You beat me to it.)
Your daughter rules, John. Err, the pomes, I mean.
On the plus side, you may have a budding Emily Dickinson on your hands.
Of course, that means she’ll remain unpublished, & never leave your house for her entire life.
yin/yang
simply magnificent
Gee, I don’t even remember there being any coffee houses in Dayton.
P.S. The apple didn’t fall very far from the tree, now did she, Daddy-o?
HI
I LOVE YOU
I think that it is good for ur daughter to be expressing her feeling and as for”wil” if u have noting good to say CAN IT
I totally agree!!!
I so agree with this. homework stinks!! it should be banned!!!
pce out
u guys don’t even know how to spell poem. ur sad. this is the best poem i have ever read!!!
some one should give her a medal or somethin’.
Amazingly, my colledge Science Professor totaly agrees with this!
Blah!
I have to agree with your daughter. Homework is all I’ve been doing lately. Great poem :)