From Brea, Grade 12

Dear Naomi Shihab Nye, 

I am writing to thank you for opening my mind to new ideas. My name is Brea and I am a senior in high school in Hartland, Wisconsin. During my creative writing class, we read many poems and your poem “One Boy Told Me” stood out to me more than the others. It stood out to me because I enjoyed all of the unintentional figurative language that children use.

I really enjoyed that you took the words from your son and used them to write this spectacular poem. I think that children's descriptions of things like “my tongue is the carwash / for the spoon” (lines 41-42) are so amazing. It is such a bizarre comparison but it is very truthful and makes complete sense. I think the way children see the world is amazing and I love that you found a way to let the world enjoy and understand it. Your poem makes me want to think about how a child would see a situation and use it in my writing!  

Being able to relate to something makes it much more enjoyable. Somehow I found myself relating to some of your son's thoughts. I wouldn’t think I would relate to them however, when I think about what some of these lines actually mean it makes sense and I understand exactly what he was feeling. My favorite relatable line is “oatmeal cookies make my throat gallop”(line 5). At first when I heard it, I thought it was just some silly thing that a kid said, but when I think about it I might also say that something I like makes my “throat gallop” because it is so good. 

Another reason that I enjoy your poem so much is because I work with children for my job and I am a nanny and recreational gymnastics coach. This being said, I hear these “random” phrases from kids all of the time. I even wrote down some of the most far-fetched things that I hear. One of my favorites is after I explained that we had to do three pull ups on the bar, a child responded with “I wear those to bed.” I have never stopped to think about the fact that this is how they see the world. They aren’t always just rambling to say things. They are talking to me but how they understand the world is so innocent and different from the way I would describe something. As an (almost) adult, I think it would be silly to ask “can noodles swim?” but to a kid why wouldn’t they? Noodles are in water and move around and they are taught that things in water that move around can swim so in their minds, noodles should be able to swim too. 

Your poem takes a different approach to thinking about life and it makes me stop and contemplate things. I enjoyed that “One Boy Told Me” made me think about the other perspective and I think that I will enjoy working with kids even more after this because I will have a different viewpoint of the things that they are telling me.

I hope that you keep writing these poems and I wish that we could all think the same, innocent, way that children do. 

Sincerely, 

Brea