LITR 3731: Creative Writing 2006
Student Poetry Submission

Tami Gilley

Too Young To Understand

(Final Version)

My grandfather died before I was born.

A hero.

Too young to understand.

My face was cut when I was born.

Now healed.

Too young to understand.

My parents divorced.

We moved.

Too young to understand.

My mom walked out on me.

No bonding.

Too young to understand.

My first husband cheated on me.

I moved on.

Too young to understand.

My grandmother slipped away from me.

Never aware.

Too young to understand.

My cousin betrayed me.

Easy way out.

Too young to understand.

My dad is now dying.

And now I understand.

(Original Version) 

         Understanding

My grandfather died before I was born.

Too young to understand.

My face was cut when I was born.

Too young to understand.

My parents got a divorce.

Too young to understand.

My mom walked out on me.

Too young to understand.

My husband cheated on me.

Too young to understand.

My grandmother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

Too young to understand.

My cousin died of a drug overdose.

Too young to understand.

My dad is dying.

And now I know.

Revision Account

This is actually one of the few poems I have ever written.  I have always been more of an essay writer and never explored my poetic side.  The idea for this poem surfaced from one of my many conversations with my teenage son.  As he was about to start on his journey into manhood I decided to have heartfelt talk with him.  As started explaining to him all the bumps in the road I have been through, I immediately decided to make a poem out of them.  I have done numerous amounts of personal essays over my life so I was thinking a poem might be more intriguing.

As I sat down and started writing this poem, I kept having a feeling that I was simplifying it too much.  I was going back and forth with the amount of lines and before I knew it, I was creating another essay.  I started remembering some ideas from a previous creative writing class and decided to go with a one line repetition.  This seemed to work for me because it flowed well yet still left room for the imagination.

The first person to critique my poem was my son.  He is majoring in communications so he has a little creative side to him.  He enjoyed reading the poem except he felt a little confused with my opening line.  He didn’t understand how I could understand my grandfather’s death if I wasn’t born when he died.  As I read this line again, I could see the confusion.  I knew in my mind what I wanted this to say, but I decided to change it for the reader.  I also enjoyed several constructive comments from the class.  I read over all the comments that were posted on the copies and decided a few of them definitely needed to be implemented.  I am not sure who came up with the idea to add a line to each stanza, but I definitely think it gave depth and a wealth of information to the poem.  It helped with the intrigue factor and gave the poem the extra zest that I felt it needed.  Another problem a few people discussed was my title.  I decided to change it from “Understanding” to “Too Young to Understand” because that is what the majority of the people felt invited them in. 

The only problem I had with the critiques was some of the comments on the last line of the poem.  I had a few people that thought this should be changed and continue with the “too young to understand”.  However, this was the only stanza that I felt like I could not change.  Some of the comments for this change to me would have changed my whole idea of the poem to begin with.  Probably the one comment that helped me solidify my decision not to change this stanza came from Jonathan Moeller.  He leaned over to me after I had finished being critiqued and said, “I totally understood the last stanza, I wouldn’t change it. I think it sounded great.”  That helped me make my decision.