Gamma wrote a poem and told me to post it here.
i am the ocean
i am a wave. i am cold. i talk to the animals and seaweed and shells, and with the coral and the other waves. that is the roar of the waves.
when i am the water i feel powerful. then i dance around and sing in the language of water.
i am the animals. i feel beautiful and famous. then i talk to the other animals and run away from the dangerous ones. i talk to the waves and swim around and look for food.
when i am the roar i drown out everything else. then i am inside the water and the waves.
when i am the clams, i run away from sea stars. i play and rattle around and swim.
when i am life then i am everything. i feel good. then i don’t let the sharks catch me, or i wouldn’t be life anymore.
when i am music then i swim through the waves. three seconds after i was in the waves, they make their roar, that is music.
I love that she feels powerful, beautiful and, especially, famous. She’s apparently also rather bossy, telling you to post her work here. ;-)
Lovely! (Did she write in English or German?)
The poem happened like this. Her cousin, who is in second grade, is runner up in a national poetry contest. she said gee, i could never write a poem. i said, why not try. she chose the ocean as a theme. i had her free associate a list of words. then she imagined what it felt like to be each of those things. she told me in german, i typed it in english, changing nothing. now she thinks she could, perhaps, write poetry after all.
Her cousin’s poem was very nice.
how old is gamma? i love poetry from children so much. i wish i could talk my son into writing some, and i think i might follow your example to get him to try.
Very nice! My daughters had similar experiences of thinking they couldn’t do something, (writing a poem for a school assignment comes to mind); but, as in this case, when given an idea or two and some encouragement they were actually able to do quite well.