Guest commentary: After Connecticut shooting, healing through children's poetry
To begin, this article is not light. Maybe I overreact, maybe I don't. But I couldn't help but wince as I was reading about hands... and all that they can do. It's enlightening, really. I don't think I've ever really paid that much attention to what is behind everything: our hands. Guns don't kill people; the hands that pull the trigger do. This article, written after the school shooting in Connecticut, uses syntax, imagery and details to portray the idea of hands; hands can love, hands can hurt, hands can hold and hands can kill. Through it all though, there is some hope and healing to be done.
Syntax is a powerful thing in this article. The beginning is written in short, choppy writing to add emphasis on particular ideas and make things more dramatic. Take the beginning for example:
~"But hands, too, can take away. Hands that hit. Hands that slap. Hands that curl into fists. Hands that pull a trigger.
Children are dead. In a school. This is not the first time. Will it be the last?
I work with children in schools. A school is not a place where children go to die."
~"The students I teach know about guns. They’ve seen guns. They’ve heard guns. Some have even held a gun in their hands.
This is Detroit. This is America. This is not some kind of bad dream."
Both of these are short, dramatic ideas that slap the reader across the face. They're not fluffy sentences that morning families are going to lightly cry about. No, they're straight, to the point and not sugar coated. But that wasn't the point, the idea was to show the harsh reality of the world and that not everything should be taken for granted, like hands. In this case, for definately follows function. Towards the end, though, sentences were lengthened and had better flow as the tone shifted to more hopeful. Through examples of poetry, the author was able to relieve the morbid topic a little. The innocence of little kids and forever-hope was paralleled with the longer and flow-y sentences. This shows that through all of the madness, there are still good things in the world.
Imagery is another tool the author uses to dramatize the event. In the beginning, the author writes about hands and gives images to things we don't normally pay attention to.
~A mother crosses the street with her child and lets the child go.
A father places his hand on his child’s shoulder and says, “Have a good day.”
Had you read those sentences on their own, the emphasis would not be on hands. In fact, hands would not even come to mind; it is barely mentioned. With the context though, the images playing through the minds of readers are now focused on these innocent, over-looked movement of hands. This creates the effect that people are now paying attention to things that aren't usually paid attention to. This could be both a good and bad thing, but leaves a heavy feeling on the reader as they realize the significance of everything.
Lastly, the author uses details to pull the reader in towards a half morbid, half hopeful tone. Adding poems from well-known authors and little children adds a heavy, then innocent feeling for the reader. Whitman's idea that we are all connected was very serious and I was thinking something along the line if "true facts..." which was also very depressing. We are all connected. Shooting in one states affects all the states. One child dying is any child dying, none the less 20. But then the shift to actual elementary students was both devastating and gorgeous at the same time. I really liked reading their work. I don't know why, but it made me happy. And I don't think the author was trying to make me feel all that bad, either. The poetry is a way to cope, a way to heal. It's sad and true, but it's nice. Though it all, there is still something to be taken from all the bad. Still things to learn, still things to do, and still things to appreciate.
