[Joe Crocker]

Bedtime Story

Pyjama’d, nightied, they are read to,
snuggled close, or independently alert.
The Baudelaires’ unfortunate events unravel.
Hogwarts weaves a family for Harry.
Boyhood and a Bear are said goodbye to.

The boy absorbs and uses it to grow.
His sister smiles because she knows, she knows.
The youngest bites her toes.

The youngest settles back
and blithely bites her toes.

[annie nance]

I have so many questions, Joe. This is me, picking your brain...
Who's doing the reading?
How many kids are there?
Why is "Bear" capitalized?
What's happening between the reading of the bear story (Winnie the Pooh, right?) and the saying goodbye to it? Why say goodbye?
Which ones are snuggling and which ones are independently alert, and why aren't they all snuggling?
What is the boy absorbing and using?
What does the sister know?
"The" implies one sister. Is the youngest also a sister? Or someone else?
Is the youngest biting her own toes or the sister's toes?

I want to know more --- so much more!

Other observations:
"Blithely" seems like a very non childlike word.
You have two pretty passive situations (being read to; said goodbye to)

Just some food for thought.

annie

[Joe Crocker]

Thanks for taking the trouble to pick at this Annie. It has had a lot of “looks” but yours is the only comment so far. I did think that might be the case. It is more or less a doodle to myself capturing elements of many story-times with my kids. It simply references some well known children's books and gnomically describes how my children heard them. So it is rather slight and doesn’t give the reader much purchase. I could say much more about who and what is going on (eg the allusion to the last chapter of the House at Pooh Corner, “in which Christopher Robin and Pooh come to an enchanted place and we leave them there”). Perhaps I should develop it. But I was pleased enough with the sound and the feel to wonder whether there was enough in it to spark recognition in others. I’m quite happy to hold onto it as my own family keepsake.

Thanks again

Joe

[Jim Moonan]

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Hi Joe, This feels rather dashed off without much effort put into the poetical aspect of the imagery you conjure.

I wondered, too, about the number of children being read to (2? 3?)

And I can't figure out why the final couplet sounds like a rehashing of the two lines that precede it.

It's fine to keep as is as a family keepsake, but I am left wondering what the point of the poem is. I am assuming it is to capture the memories of reading at bedtime to your children, so I think there is fertile ground there to develop it. But as is, it doesn't take me anywhere.

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[Mark McDonnell]

Well, I rather enjoyed it for what it is, Joe, which is a very sweet and very simple evocation of bedtime stories. I didn't have any of the questions that seemed to trouble Annie. It seemed clear to me that a parent (presumably the speaker) is doing the reading, that there are 3 children (girl, boy, girl in age order), that Bear is capitalised because Milne would often capitalise for comic effect (Bear of Very Little Brain), that the "goodbye" refers to the famously tearjerking ending of the final Pooh story, that the boy is probably the one snuggling and the eldest girl is independently alert because she is older (too old to snuggle), that the boy is absorbing life lessons from the stories while the older girl enjoys the stories but feels she "knows" the lessons/narrative conventions already and that the youngest girl is biting her own toes, as toddler age children do. "Blithely" is a word from the adult narrator, it seems, and I also liked the repetition at the end, where the phrase is extended giving a sense of consolidation and "settling down" to sleepiness. Very sweet.

[Jim Moonan]

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Originally Posted by Mark McDonnell

Well, I rather enjoyed it for what it is, Joe, which is a very sweet and very simple evocation of bedtime stories. I didn't have any of the questions that seemed to trouble Annie. It seemed clear to me that a parent (presumably the speaker) is doing the reading, that there are 3 children (girl, boy, girl in age order), that Bear is capitalised because Milne would often capitalise for comic effect (Bear of Very Little Brain), that the "goodbye" refers to the famously tearjerking ending of the final Pooh story, that the boy is probably the one snuggling and the eldest girl is independently alert because she is older (too old to snuggle), that the boy is absorbing life lessons from the stories while the older girl enjoys the stories but feels she "knows" the lessons/narrative conventions already and that the youngest girl is biting her own toes, as toddler age children do. "Blithely" is a word from the adult narrator, it seems, and I also liked the repetition at the end, where the phrase is extended giving a sense of consolidation and "settling down" to sleepiness. Very sweet.

Thanks for "reading" this to me Mark. I see exactly what you're saying and the poem is now reading more clearly. I guess I just wasn't ready for a bedtime story — ha! But now I'm all snuggled into it. It's a three-headed poem where children's stories of varying ages are floated through the lines of the poem: Lemony Snickets, Harry Potter and Pooh.


And with my new insight the final couplet's redundancy works beautifully.

Thanks for the insight.


(Not sure about the discrepancy between the thread title and the poem title)

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[Ella Shively]

Hi Joe,

I like how the age and gender of the siblings and the youngest's bitey nature echo the Baudelaire characters themselves. I'm not sure about "Pyjama’d, nightied," and the opening line feels kind of weak. Otherwise this was quite an enjoyable poem.

Thanks for sharing,

Ella