Art Class

Take heart, kiddos!  Teachers and parents don’t know everything do they?!  The world has plenty to teach those who are willing to look, listen and learn.  I tuck X.J. Kennedy's poem, 'Art Class', into a lunchbox when a member of my family feels their creativity is being squashed by "someone who doesn't know how to draw a tree."

Art Class

Ms. Beecher said I don’t know how

                To make a lifelike tree.
Well, all I did was look and draw
                How branches looked to me.

I know what you’re supposed to do –
                You make a Y, and sitting
On both its arms another two
                Y’s.  Make them go on splitting.
 

I went and looked up at a bough

               With bark like scraped black leather,
And neither does a tree know how
                To fit a tree together. 

                X. J. Kennedy, Poetry Speaks to Children