[Critique Group 2] Leonard's comments on Joans piece

[tuchyner5 at aol.com]

This poem speaks to me. 

Not through  knowing or understanding, 

but through getting  a feel for what you  are saying, 

through  inadequate words, 

wich are riddled with the X’s of failureto say what is in your heart.  

And, eventhough  you can’t make the words say what you mean, 

the very failure tells me that youget it. 

If I were to guess, Albert is a boywith cerebral palsey. 

You tried to write  about him, 

but he  laughed and said you don’t understand. 

But in his doing so,  

he pushed beyond  the words.  

He let you see what CP did tohis  ability to use the  typewriter. 

He wrote  with mistakes  with X’s that showed you what  CP was like.

He ripped it out of the typewriter infriustration and anger.  

Then you understood.  

But, does he understand whatblindness does to you. 

Afterall, you can’t read it. 

But words aren’t everything.  

 


A Boy Called Albert

by Joan Myles





the poem I want to write

simple and real and raw

says it all in a few lines

 

but my heart is a noisy jumble

words aren’t everything

sometimes there are complications like

 

cerebral palsy and 

blindness and 

simply surviving adolescence

 

the poem I want to write

about how I  called you Albert

throbs with you laughing

 

saying“you didn’t understand me did you”

and me blushing

because I understood that

 

the poem I want to write

jumps with the spasms of insight

you pushed through my ears

 

into mangled letters between X’s

ripped and fisted free of the typewriter

and delivered to me

 

and maybe it’s me laughing this time

saying “you don’t understand me do you”

because words aren’t everything




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