YA Saves--Counterpoint

After my blog post critiquing Meghan Cox Gurdon’s two attention-getting essays on YA fiction on Tuesday, I was advised by some commenters that I had stated my case a bit too broadly. I was forced to concede some points. I’d like to elaborate on those points. Because if you can’t argue with yourself, who can you argue with?

Point #1: Ms. Gurdon is not an idiot for stating her opinion or for sticking to it, if she truly believes it to be correct

Although I didn’t actually call Ms. Gurdon an idiot, I did say “Because when thousands are calling you an idiot, you should always stick to your guns.”

It’s not the worst that has been said of Ms. Gurdon, but this is my blog and I have a deep-seated need to be diplomatic, so let me clarify. When you truly believe you are in the right, you do not have to change your opinion, no matter how many people disagree with you. It takes a lot of strength to advocate for an unpopular opinion, and sometimes the unpopular is right.

I don’t think so in this case, but still. It can happen.

What I should have said is that when thousands of people are calling you an idiot, it is sometimes prudent to examine your position, inspect it for flaws, acknowledge the places you can bend, the places where perhaps you overstated your case, and provide concrete examples to back up the rest.

Extraordinary positions require extraordinary proof.  Ms. Gurdon did not supply any proof, even after her position was attacked. She cited no studies which have examined the effect of negative YA elements on YA readers. Provided no anecdotes from readers who date their personal moral decline from the day they read "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian." Quoted no parents who noticed marked negative behavior changes in their teen readers after they read "Rage."  She didn’t even recount a personal anecdote about how profoundly disturbed she was for days after she finished "The Marbury Lens" and how she’s been suffering ever since.

Instead, she rests on her observation that there are bad elements in lots of YA books, hypothesizes that these bad elements might have negative effects on some impressionable readers, and leaves that suggestion to fester in the minds of paranoid parents everywhere. She didn’t use the C-word, and has specifically asserted that she doesn’t believe in censoring books, but she must excuse the YA community for being afraid that others might be inflamed enough by her unsupported musings to make that very leap.

Because that’s what uninformed people do with unsupported fear-mongering. They take a hint of trouble with a capital T, notice it rhymes with C, and make sure that stands for Censor. If that’s not what she meant to do, she should have been more careful. Perhaps she could have taken the time to share with us how to judge the message of a book by its cover, or at least acknowledged some of the good things that can come of the books she’s attacking.

If she needs examples, she hasn’t been paying that much attention to #YASaves on Twitter.

Point #2: Some elements can feel damaging, in and of themselves, depending on the reader

Fiction can be powerful. In the hands of a master wordsmith, readers can come away from a scene or a book actually feeling like they experienced what was described. That’s not always fun. It’s not always healthy. It’s not always ideal. A detailed scene of violent rape, for instance, can have lingering negative effects on an individual, even if the author takes pains to show how the victim overcame her trauma. It can be unsettling to learn that such evil exists in the world.

I’m a huge fan of Dan Wells’s books about 15-year-old sociopath John Wayne Cleaver, beginning with I AM NOT A SERIAL KILLER. I love the message of the books—that you can overcome any odds and choose your own path in life. That you can decide how to act, even if all your instincts are dictating a different destiny. I find the books inspiring and uplifting, in a bloody, gritty, screaming sort of way. Even though John witnesses and even does horrible things, the books never once suggest that the horrible things are good. They call evil evil and evil is overcome. I find them inspiring.

My mother disagrees. On my recommendation, she read the first book. She found it to be “soul-destroying.” She (rather insultingly) wondered how anyone could read such depravity and not be damaged by it.

My mother is a generally reasonable woman. She is not taken to fits of sentimentality or illogical thinking. If she found the books personally offensive to such a degree, it’s because she truly felt that way. Same with one commenter on my Tuesday post, who described her “soul damaging” experiences with two separate YA books. I’ve had several online conversations with this woman and find her to be very level-headed. (She liked Dan Wells’ books.)

So how do I reconcile my mother’s and my friend’s experiences with my own? I don’t have to. Everyone is different. Perhaps I’ve already been exposed to so much of the horrible side of life that it is harder to shock me. (I do read a lot of police reports.) Perhaps the elements themselves don’t matter as much to me as the overall message. Perhaps others are more sensitive. That’s okay. People are different. This is why it’s irresponsible to say that such-and-such an element is always bad—or always good.

I do want to make it clear that I do not feel my soul has been destroyed by any of the horrible things I’ve read about, either in fiction or in real life. It’s intact, thank you very much. (I teach Sunday school, so it better be.)  Souls are remarkably resilient, actually.

So are teens. Even well-adjusted teens who haven’t been traumatized by real life. Though many of them may not enjoy learning about ugly things and may find they have to reflect on them to an uncomfortable degree in order to process what they’ve read, process they will. If the truth has been told, even if that truth is ugly, they will eventually learn to accept it. They will move on. They will still be happy, healthy, and well-adjusted. They will perhaps be wiser.

That doesn’t mean that there is a necessary virtue in facing the horrible things in life and accepting them. But for those who do, who can endure the adjustment, there is a world of empathy on the other side. There is an increased ability to understand the many ways a heart can be broken and how it can be put back together again. There is perhaps not as much peace, but there is still joy.

Point #3: Characters shouldn’t live in a consequence-free zone

The most damaging thing a YA book can do, in my opinion, is lie to a child. Telling a child, for instance, that they are worthless, or that they have no hope for happiness, can destroy them. They should never be told that good is evil, that evil is good, or that they have no power to choose between the two.

It should never be suggested that they can do what they want without suffering the natural consequences.

If there is any sometimes-legitimate complaint to be made about YA fiction today -- and, really, adult fiction has this problem, too -- I think this is it. Teenage characters get drunk and get high and are perfectly competent the next day. They never get thrown in juvie for smoking cigarettes. Teenage girls willingly sleep with adult men and no one points out that those men could now properly be labeled sex-offenders. They damage property, steal, and trespass and, so long as they’re having lighthearted fun while they do it, very few characters come away with a juvenile record and community service.

That’s just not accurate. Or, if it is, it might not be the best truth to reinforce.

One of the hallmarks of adolescence is a decreased ability to appreciate consequences. Many teens will unthinkingly destroy their own or someone else’s life because they don’t stop to consider what will happen next. The books they read should help remind them of the power of consequence—not reinforce their mistaken belief in their own invincibility.

It’s impossible, of course, when writing a book, to include a consequence for every last action – and even more impossible to include consequences that everyone will agree with. Authors must pick and choose which parts of “reality” will help build their theme, and which will distract a reader from the main story.  I think that, overall, authors in general and YA authors especially try to be very responsible with cause and effect. They try to show that negative actions bring negative rewards.  It doesn’t happen in every scene of every book, but I think few YA books can be accused of a blatant disregard for responsibility.

Responsibility is what parents are for. I frequently point out to my sons that, hey, this car chase they think is so cool? That “hero” will be paying off restitution on all those crashed cars for the rest of his life… if he ever makes it out of prison for sideswiping that cop car and causing it to flip like that. Aggravated battery on a law enforcement officer isn’t something to mess around with.

In the end, I think I can agree with Ms. Gurdon on this point: Parents should be the gatekeepers of what their children are ready to read. I’ll even take it one step further: Parents should be the tour guides as well. They should lead the way through the horror. They should answer questions and refer their children to additional resources. They should be a sounding board and a touchstone.

Above all, they should never presume to declare what is good or bad for someone else’s children. They should never declare that a certain work of fiction has no value for anyone. They should never judge a book by its cover.

So what did I miss this time? :)

[Note: this blog post was posted simultaneously on International Business Times-Business & Books, which also linked to my post from Tuesday: YA Saves--Especially when it shows evil. When they contacted me about republishing the first, I was already planning this counterpoint, so they published this instead. Go check em out!]

YA Saves--Especially when it shows evil

Okay, I resisted last time. So many cool YA authors were on the front lines of defense that I figured my own voice would be superfluous.  Perhaps it still is. I like to talk regardless, so here goes.

On June 4, 2011, Meghan Cox Gurdon published an essay called Darkness Too Visible in the Wall Street Journal in which she made a perfectly valid observation that there was a lot of darkness, drug use, sexual misconduct, violence, and general ugliness in YA fiction these days. If she'd just pointed it out, we'd all have just nodded our heads and commented on how observant she was. She didn't stop there, though. Instead, she vilified the practice, accusing those who write dark-themed YA books of poisoning the minds of the rising generation. She argued that exposing them to such awful themes made those themes more commonplace, and made the readers correspondingly more likely to mimic the actions of the deeply flawed protagonists.

Twitter exploded (see the #YASaves hashtag). YA blogs screamed (see Nathan Bransford's list of responding blogs). Almost everyone was firmly in support of dark YA and lashed out at Ms. Gurdon for saying such awful things about it.

The June 28, 2011 WSJ contains another essay by Ms. Gurdon entitled My 'Reprehensible' Take on Teen Literature. Because when thousands are calling you an idiot, you should always stick to your guns.

Her new essay is shorter than her first, but again makes the point that dark YA serves to normalize themes we'd do better to shelter our young ones from:

It is true that so-called problem novels may be helpful to children in anguished circumstances. The larger question is whether books about rape, incest, eating disorders and "cutting" (self-mutilation) help to normalize such behaviors for the vast majority of children who are merely living through the routine ordeals of adolescence.

There are real-world reasons for caution. For years, federal researchers could not understand why drug- and tobacco-prevention programs seemed to be associated with greater drug and tobacco use. It turned out that children, while grasping the idea that drugs were bad, also absorbed the meta-message that adults expected teens to take drugs. Well-intentioned messages, in other words, can have the unintended consequence of opening the door to expectations and behaviors that might otherwise remain closed.

Now Ms. Gurdon has a valid concern. We may not agree with her conclusions, but I'm sure none of us wants to unintentionally encourage our young readers to mirror the bad behaviors of our characters.

I think, though, that Ms. Gurdon is missing the key difference between drug education programs and stories. Drug education programs give warning information. In much the same way sex education has been criticized for encouraging teenage sexual activity, drug education can't help but convey the idea that "we expect many of you-who-are-sitting-in-this-room to try this."

Stories are different.

Stories. Are. Different.

I attended college at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. That's that Mormon school, run by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and proud to be listed as the most "Stone Cold Sober" school in the United States. Our honor code couldn't eradicate the foibles of youth, but it sure did a lot to discourage most of them.

My "home" building was the Harris Fine Arts Center, which would occasionally place barricades at all entrances warning conservative students and faculty that a "possibly offensive" fine art exhibit was currently on display in the main gallery. They did that not because they believed that the exhibits were worthy of censor, but because conservatives would complain otherwise.

Conservatives liked to complain about the theatre productions, too. When Brecht's The Chalk Circle was produced there, the department head received letters criticizing everything from the man taking a bath, fully clothed in the upside-down-table-tub to the man-removed-his-belt-and-threatened-to-rape-the-girl scene to the fourth-wall violations. *Gasp!* Such letter-writers thought that such plays ought not to be produced at a church university. Such letter-writers didn't know their church history.

Joseph Smith, the first LDS prophet, formed theatre troupes. Brigham Young, the second prophet, acted in them. When the saints relocated to the desert that was the Salt Lake valley, the crops were barely in the ground when the first theater was built. Brigham Young insisted that his 10 oldest daughters act in the productions so that the productions would be well-attended.

These productions were not full of sweetness and light. The plays weren't all about Jane finding the gospel and how much better her life was, now that she never cursed. The plays were about evil.

Brigham Young said:

Upon the stage of a theater can be represented in character, evil and its consequences, good and its happy results and rewards, the weakness and the follies of man, the magnanimity of virtue and the greatness of truth. The stage can be made to aid the pulpit in impressing upon the minds of a community an enlightened sense of a virtuous life, also a proper horror of the enormity of sin and a just dread of its consequences. The path of sin with its thorns and pitfalls … can be revealed, and how to shun it” (Discourses of Brigham Young, sel. John A. Widtsoe, Salt Lake City: Desert Book, 1941, p. 243).

Did you catch the catch? You can't teach the consequences of sin without showing it. That's the original purpose of the theater: to teach the audience through story what they can expect if their behavior should mirror the behavior of the characters. That effect is called catharsis--we get to purge negative emotions without screwing up our own lives in the process.

No matter your religion, the principle holds true: people (including children) learn better through experience. We don't want them to experience rape, violence, drug use, cutting, bullying, damaging sexual relationships, or petty ugliness in their real lives. What to do? Catharsis. Vicarious purging. Expose them to a character they can relate to who will crawl through the muck for them, and take them along. Show them how--and WHY--bad decisions are made. Let your young readers scream at the pages and curse the character for being an idiot. Let them understand what might lead someone to be that stupid. Let them feel within themselves their own tendencies for error so they can take steps to fix them before they manifest.

Toward the end of her essay, Ms. Gurdon quotes from the back cover of a recently-received YA ARC:

It so happened that, as the Twitterverse was roiling over "Darkness Too Visible," I received an advanced reader's copy of an "edgy paranormal" teen novel coming out in August. Have a look at the excerpt on the back cover, where publishers try to hook potential buyers: "I used to squirm when I heard people talking about cutting—taking a razor to your own flesh never seemed logical to me. But in reality, it's wonderful. You can cut into yourself all the frustrations people take out on you." Now ask yourself: Is a book the only thing being sold here?

Which, of course, demonstrates the folly of rhetorical questions. The excerpt on its face calls the practice of cutting illogical--but then provides a character who can explain why a teen might succumb to such an illogical practice. A character who will take the reader through that experience, in all its horror and folly and--I trust and hope--ultimately explain how to overcome the addiction of self-mutilation. For those who might be drawn to the practice, this book could serve as a life-saving reality check. For those who have never heard of it and would never do it, this book could still teach them about the damaging effects of addiction in any form and the value of staying far away from it.

No one--not even Ms. Gurdon--can know what the ultimate message of the book is without READING IT.

Now, I support Ms. Gurdon's right to express her opinion. I just wish she'd be more responsible about it. Rather than spotting scary themes, scenes, and habits in YA books and bemoaning the possible effects of exposing children to such horrors, I wish she'd take the time to read the books she's attacking. I wish she'd focus her attack on a book-by-book basis, pointing out what is TAUGHT, rather than what is SHOWN. I wish she'd criticize the moral of the story, rather than the means of delivery.

She might find that some lessons are most effectively learned in a crucible of terrible, horrible, no good, very bad things.

Especially if those terrible, horrible, no good, very bad things happen to a fictional character, instead of a real-live teen who was discouraged from reading about them for fear she'd learn too much about the horrible things in life.

What terrible things did you read about as a youth? Did you go right out and try them yourself?

UPDATE: Don't miss my YA Saves -- Counterpoint post. It was also published on International Business Times - Business & Books, which also linked to this post. *Waves to IBT readers*

Poetry Summer Week 5: De Stove Pipe Hole

Made my husband listen to me pass of Success is Counted Sweetest. Only missed two words. Fixed em. Moving on. :)

Last night at my husband’s family reunion, we had a talent show. My son and two of his cousins (a time or two removed) sang the song at the end of Monsters, Inc and I’ve Been Watching You by Rodney Atkins. My in-laws roped me and my sister-in-law into singing a primary song (Where is Heaven), which we sang about 5 minutes after scanning the words, struggling to remember the tune, and singing a verse or two quietly to ourselves. One of Jerry’s adult cousins did a “skit” which consisted of a game of 20 questions preceded by the hint “two sisters both died in unique ways. Name the movie.” After a few unhelpful questions, a 10-year-old cousin chimed in with “The Wizard of Oz!” And thus ended the talent show.

So what does this have to do with poetry?

Me, Grandpa LeRoy's portrait,
my son, whose middle name is LeRoy,
and my mother, who passed
the theatre bug to me

Talent shows at my own family reunions (not that we really ever have them anymore, dang it) ALWAYS included my mother’s father in a rendition of De Stove Pipe Hole. My grandpa met my grandma when he directed a play she was in, and grandpa had a life-long love of the theatre that culminated in several years of annual community theatre performances of Scrooge in A Christmas Carol. Which I mention only to emphasize how dang entertaining his Da Stove Pipe Hole was. There were no indulgent smiles. No courtesy laughter or perfunctory applause. Grandpa was a hit, every time. At his funeral a few years ago, one of my cousins ably recited it in his honor, proving that I wasn’t the only grandchild to memorize it.

I, of course, memorized it years before he passed. He’d leant me a copy of the book it was in (this is pre-internet) and, though I ultimately lost the book, I memorized the poem first. My first (sophomore) year of high school, I used it to audition for the fall play. The piece was a lot longer than your average audition piece, but the drama teacher let me do the whole thing so she could see if it was long enough to enter into the upcoming drama competition. I’d never heard of such a thing, but I was happy to enter, and did very, very well. An obsession was born. Or, well, kept alive anyway.

So last night after Jerry’s family talent show, I was feeling a bit guilty. (Or was it limelight-deprived?) I considered offering to recite one of the poems I’d memorized for this challenge, but the most entertaining one, The Bells, really isn’t always a crowd pleaser. I could see people’s eyes glazing over. I could hear the perfunctory applause. I didn’t want it. So I started thinking about Da Stove Pipe Hole. I decided to see how much of it I could remember, in case I wanted to offer to perform around the campfire. I ran into some memory snags. I jumped on the super-slow internet (yay internet!) to refresh my memory and discovered there was more I hadn’t even remembered was IN there!

So that’s what I’m [re-]memorizing this week. I want Da Stove Pipe Hole firmly in my memory. I want to be able to whip it out for whatever talent show might happen along my way. I want to be able to entertain at the drop of a hat. I wonder if it would be appropriate for future book-signings. Yanno, in case I actually get published someday and no one wants to hear me talk about my book. :)

With that long introduction, here’s the long poem, which, if done properly, includes the explanation that a stove pipe is a long wide pipe that extends from the top of a wood-burning stove and carries the smoke out of the house. These pipes would often have to be cleaned, and would be removed for the purpose. This would leave a hole through several levels of the house:

De Stove Pipe Hole

by William Henry Drummond

Dat's very cole an' stormy night on Village St. Mathieu,

W'en ev'ry wan he's go couché, an' dog was quiet, too--

Young Dominique is start heem out see Emmeline Gourdon,

Was leevin' on her fader's place, Maxime de Forgeron.

Poor Dominique he's lak dat girl, an' love her mos' de tam,

An' she was mak' de promise--sure--some day she be his famme,

But she have worse ole fader dat's never on de worl',

Was swear onless he's riche lak diable, no feller's get hees girl.

He's mak' it plaintee fuss about hees daughter Emmeline,

Dat's mebbe nice girl, too, but den, Mon Dieu, she's not de queen!

An' w'en de young man's come aroun' for spark it on de door,

An' hear de ole man swear 'Bapteme!' he's never come no more.

Young Dominique he's sam' de res',--was scare for ole Maxime,

He don't lak risk hese'f too moche for chances seein' heem,

Dat's only stormy night he come, so dark you cannot see,

An dat's de reason w'y also, he's climb de gallerie.

De girl she's waitin' dere for heem--don't care about de rain,

So glad for see young Dominique he's comin' back again,

Dey bote forget de ole Maxime, an' mak de embrasser

An affer dey was finish dat, poor Dominique is say--

'Good-bye, dear Emmeline, good-bye; I'm goin' very soon,

For you I got no better chance, dan feller on de moon--

It's all de fault your fader, too, dat I be go away,

He's got no use for me at all--I see dat ev'ry day.

'He's never meet me on de road but he is say 'Sapré!'

An' if he ketch me on de house I'm scare he's killin' me,

So I mus' lef' ole St. Mathieu, for work on 'noder place,

An' till I mak de beeg for-tune, you never see ma face.'

Den Emmeline say 'Dominique, ma love you'll alway be

An' if you kiss me two, t'ree tam I'll not tole noboddy--

But prenez garde ma fader, please, I know he's gettin ole--

All sam' he offen walk de house upon de stockin' sole.

'Good-bye, good-bye, cher Dominique! I know you will be true,

I don't want no riche feller me, ma heart she go wit' you.'

Dat's very quick he's kiss her den, before de fader come,

But don't get too moche pleasurement--so 'fraid de ole Bonhomme.

Wall! jus' about dey're half way t'roo wit all dat love beez-nesse

Emmeline say, 'Dominique, w'at for you're scare lak all de res?

Don't see mese'f moche danger now de ole man come aroun','

W'en minute affer dat, dere's noise, lak' house she's fallin' down.

Den Emmeline she holler 'Fire! will no wan come for me?'

An Dominique is jomp so high, near bus' de gallerie,--

'Help! help! right off,' somebody shout, 'I'm killin' on ma place,

It's all de fault ma daughter, too, dat girl she's ma disgrace.'

He's kip it up long tam lak dat, but not hard tellin' now,

W'at's all de noise upon de house--who's kick heem up de row?

It seem Bonhomme was sneak aroun' upon de stockin' sole,

An' firs' t'ing den de ole man walk right t'roo de stove pipe hole.

W'en Dominique is see heem dere, wit' wan leg hang below,

An' 'noder leg straight out above, he's glad for ketch heem so--

De ole man can't do not'ing, den, but swear and ax for w'y

Noboddy tak' heem out dat hole before he's comin' die.

Den Dominique he spik lak dis, 'Mon cher M'sieur Gourdon

I'm not riche city feller, me, I'm only habitant,

But I was love more I can tole your daughter Emmeline,

An' if I marry on dat girl, Bagosh! she's lak de Queen.

'I want you mak de promise now, before it's come too late,

An' I mus' tole you dis also, dere's not moche tam for wait.

Your foot she's hangin' down so low, I'm 'fraid she ketch de cole,

Wall! if you give me Emmeline, I pull you out de hole.'

Dat mak' de ole man swear more hard he never swear before,

An' wit' de foot he's got above, he's kick it on de floor,

'Non, non,' he say 'Sapré tonnerre! she never marry you,

An' if you don't look out you get de jail on St. Mathieu.'

'Correc',' young Dominique is say, 'mebbe de jail's tight place,

But you got wan small corner, too, I see it on de face,

So if you don't lak geev de girl on wan poor habitant,

Dat's be mese'f, I say, Bonsoir, mon cher M'sieur Gourdon.'

'Come back, come back,' Maxime is shout--I promise you de girl,

I never see no wan lak you--no never on de worl'!

It's not de nice trick you was play on man dat's gettin' ole,

But do jus' w'at you lak, so long you pull me out de hole.'

'Hooraw! Hooraw!' Den Dominique is pull heem out tout suite

An' Emmeline she's helpin' too for place heem on de feet,

An' affer dat de ole man's tak' de young peep down de stair,

W'ere he is go couchè right off, an' dey go on parloir.

Nex' Sunday morning dey was call by M'sieur le Curé

Get marry soon, an' ole Maxime geev Emmeline away;

Den affer dat dey settle down lak habitant is do,

An' have de mos' fine familee on Village St. Mathieu.

Pretty cool, huh?

I'd like to challenge all the #PoetryChallenge participants to memorize at least one poem that would serve them well in a talent show. Something with an exciting story, humor, and that requires a bit of flair. Yes, I'd be happy to coach your delivery when you're ready. (If we're ever in the same city.) So who's with me? 

Anyone else have good family reunion talent show memories?

At a Family Reunion with Non-Readers....

Everyone's mostly fishin' today. What would YOU be doing?

This is totally what I look like while I'm reading

I'm Sara Eden's Friend!

I'm traveling today, but I wanted to direct your attention to Sara Eden's blog, where I have been interviewed for her I Need Friends Friday feature! Learn all about me, why I relate to Evil Girls, and how much I don't know about dumb criminals.

Hope you like it! :)

Get Yer Queries Ready!

I've posted about queries before but, let's face it, I'm no expert. Let's look at the stats:

Books written: 1
Books ready for querying: .8
Query Drafts so far: 8
Queries sent to agents: 0
Successful queries: 0

See? I've read some stuff, but I really don't have the experience to back up my ramblings.

Which is why I'm joining Deanna Barnhart's Gearin' Up To Get An Agent Blogfest. It's lasting the whole month of July, with a different exercise each week to make sure I'm ready to send the query out. Since I REALLY want to be querying by the end of July (we'll see how fast this next edit goes), this is perfect timing for me.

Even more perfect? Elana Johnson's Authors' Advisory call is coming up this Thursday!! [Go to the Author's Advisory site Thursday at 8:45 EDT (or now) for complete call-in details.] Many of you sent in your queries, those queries have been forwarded to Elana, and she's going to break them down for us while talking about how to write a query that will make the agents drool! Since we didn't get the maximum number of queries, I submitted mine, too, and I'm excited to watch Elana tear it apart!

It's gonna be great! Make sure you call in! Come 15 minutes early to ask Elana all about her debut novel, POSSESSION.

Poetry Summer Week 4: Success is Counted Sweetest

IF was the perfect poem to pass off on Father's Day, and it was fun to recite it for my sons (even if I'm not the daddy).

This week's poem comes from a comment on my last poem: Meredith Mansfield suggested this one as a great one for writers. I agreed, so I had to memorize it. :) It's also a great poem for anyone who has failed at something when it was essential to succeed. Failure happens. We can't appreciate victory without it.

Success is Counted Sweetest

Emily Dickinson

Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne'er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.

Not one of all the purple host
Who took the flag to-day
Can tell the definition,
So clear, of victory!

As he, defeated, dying,

On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Burst agonized and clear!

This concept, of course, also applies to our fictional characters. Their victory will be meaningless if they haven't tried and failed to reach it several times before they succeed.