What preschoolers and poets know–and the rest of us often forget
My son, on the cusp of age three and a half, is going through a growth spurt. What this means for us is two-hour long breakfasts (made possible by his 5 a.m. waking time) where I parade out every variety of food imaginable and he eats every last drop. This morning, as he was making his way through a mosaic of plates holding eggs, nuts, fruit, cheese, yogurt and cereal, we stumbled upon a new ritual: catalogue surfing. And not the type you'd expect.
I had a bed and bath catalogue on the counter that was intended for the recycling and, without thinking, opened it. My son was captivated. In all of his years, he'd never seen such a thing.
Read it to me? he suggests.
It's mostly a list of colors, I explain.
I want to hear the colors! is his emphatic response.
My son is articulate. The spirit driving his articulation seems to be the pleasure of naming his physical and emotional experiences. He observes, for example, how his lozenge resembles a sea anemone, and then describes what happens when the lozenge "dissipates." His most vivid language surfaces when he is describing scents, flavors, moods, and visuals. Of course he would want to experience the sensory promises of a catalogue–suddenly it seems silly that this has never occurred to me before.
We begin: amethyst, ivory, lemon chiffon, linen, mint, sky, taupe, toast, pool, eggshell, fennel, marzipan, rose water, sandalwood, sea glass. The list goes on and on and on. I have never spoken a catologue's worth of color. My son and I are swimming in a sea of sensory suggestion.
As I'm moving towards the back half of the catalogue and can't take in the meaning of the words I am speaking any longer, a single piece of advice surfaces in my consciousness. When I was in graduate school, I attended a poetry reading featuring my professor, the poet Galway Kinnell. His voice is like manna to me. I experience it as the exact vibration at which poetry is meant to enter the body. But I digress.
At the end of his reading, Galway took questions. A young man asked him, "If you could give one piece of advice to poets, what would it be?"
Galway's response: "Learn the names of things."
Yes! Yes! This is the impulse behind all writing, I think: the desire to know–to discover, to FEEL–through the application of language. When we learn the vocabulary of any topic: insects, dinosaurs, solar systems, bath towels, for example, we transcend time, space, form, and get to experience through the specificity of language that particular realm. The names of things are the keys that unlock such raptures. Language the secret knock standing between us and limitless, virtual (and actual) experience.
It's such a small but potent act to hold the name of a thing inside you–then share it. My son reminded me of the simplicity of the equation. When there is a speaker (or writer) and listener (or reader), the circuit is complete, and the possibilities of how words can alchemize us are endless.
