I don’t remember where I originally read this, but I was quite a bit younger than I am now. The line “it was funny about school” popped into my head this morning, and a quick google search pulled up the whole piece, which resonates with me just as strongly now as it did when I read it in high school. Anyone have a lead on who wrote it?

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About School
(Anonymous)

He always.
He always wanted to explain things, but no one cared,
So he drew.

Sometimes he would just draw and it wasn’t anything.
He wanted to carve it in stone or write it in the sky.
He would lie out on the grass and look up in the sky and it would
be only the sky and things inside him that needed saying.

And it was after that the he drew the picture.
It was a beautiful picture. He kept it under his pillow and would
let no one see it.
And he would look at it every night and think about it.
And when it was dark and his eyes were closed he could see it still.
And it was all of him and he loved it.

When he started school he brought it with him,
Not to show anyone, but just to have with him like a friend.

It was funny about school.
He sat in a a square brown room, like all the other rooms,
And it was tight and close, and stiff.

He hated to hold the pencil and chalk, with his arm stiff and
his feet flat on the floor, stiff, with the teacher watching
and watching.
The teacher came and spoke to him.

She told him to wear a tie like all the other boys,
He said he didn’t like them and she said it didn’t matter.
After that he drew. And he drew all yellow and it was the way
he felt about morning. And it was beautiful.

The teacher came and smiled at him. “What’s this?” she said.
“Why don’t you draw something like Ken’s drawing?
Isn’t it beautiful?”

After that his mother bought him a tie and he always drew airplanes
and rocket-ships like everyone else.
And he threw the old picture away.
And when he lay all alone looking at the sky, it was big and blue,
and all of everything, but he wasn’t anymore.

He was square and brown inside and his hands were stiff.
And he was like everyone else. All the things inside him that needed saying didn’t need it anymore.

It had stopped pushing. It was crushed.
Stiff.
Like everything else.

**********

I had a terrible time trying to get this poem to show up in my blog for whatever reason. Cut and paste was being an rear, and even typing in the lines was acting ridiculous. Because of that, I’ve read this poem over and over in the past few hours… and have a couple of new insights to share about it as an older person than the Steph that first read this years ago.

Number 1: This kinda reads like one of those emails you get that are of the BETTER PARANOID THAN DED variety. Like I feel like I’ve read this poem with something to the effect of “the author of this poem killed himself after writing it, parents let your kids be kids OR ELSE.”

Number 2: It now reads to me kind of emo.

Number 3: I still like this poem. To me, I still get the same overall message from it. It’s so important to foster creativity in everyone, especially kids. The more you tell them they’re not doing art right, the less they feel like they can do art, and the less they will do it. Not everyone is a Rembrandt. But Picrearo isn’t half bad, either, if you get my drift. I kinda feel like that message carries over into a lot of other areas of life, too.

Number 4: Re-reading this poem, I kind of think if I met the author I’d wanna punch him like the kid from Into the Wild. I like his message, but he comes across as kinda idioty.

Thoughts?