A note from Emma
Letters crash
around me like
waves in a storm…
In this poem, Lilly Davatzes is clearly writing about dyslexia (it’s the title!). I am not dyslexic, but a few of my close friends are. And this poem unlocked something for me about what that means. I felt I immediately understood the way words can feel overwhelming with dyslexia, and the intense concentration needed to read or write with it.
Lilly uses the storm and the ocean as central metaphors—the letters are like waves that crash down on her and threaten to drown her in a sea of words.
…knocking me down,
pulling me into
the sea of words…
And the distractions that surround her are birds:
as distractions fly
around me like
birds.
Birds,
like words,
dive down in a
swarm.
I love how the poem ultimately subtly enacts this distraction, as the subject shifts from the words and letters to the birds. By the poem’s final sentence, the words are not being compared to birds—rather, it is the birds who are like words. The birds/distractions are what have become most real in the poem. This also seems to reflect the confusion that can happen when reading while dyslexic—how the word “word” can be mixed up with “bird”—after all, the poem could have just as easily (and perhaps more coherently) read: “Words, / like birds, / dive down in a /swarm.” However, the fact that it doesn’t is its genius!
I am not dyslexic. But, as I return from maternity leave, this poem speaks to my experience right now–of feeling overwhelmed, distracted, and needing intense amounts of concentration to read and write. That is also what I love about this poem. The title tells us it is about dyslexia, and yet it also speaks to other experiences.
This weekend, I encourage you, like Lilly, to write about a mental or emotional state that is difficult to capture using a metaphor. How can you enact that feeling through your words, your sentence structures, your formatting, your punctuation, and everything else at your disposal?
Exciting to be back and looking forward to reading your work!
From Stone Soup
May 2022
Dyslexia
By Lilly Davatzes, 11 (Jenkintown, PA)
Letters crash
around me like
waves in a storm,
knocking me down,
pulling me into
the sea of words
as distractions fly
around me like
birds.
Birds,
like words,
dive down in a
swarm.
to read more from the May 2022 issue, including another poem by Lilly, click here!
Stone Soup is published by Children’s Art Foundation-Stone Soup Inc., a 501(c)(3) educational nonprofit organization registered
in the United States of America, EIN: 23-7317498.
Stone Soup's advisors: Abby Austin, Mike Axelrod, Annabelle Baird, Jem Burch, Evelyn Chen, Juliet Fraser, Zoe Hall, Montanna Harling, Alicia & Joe Havilland, Lara Katz, Rebecca Kilroy, Christine Leishman, Julie Minnis, Jessica Opolko, Tara Prakash, Denise Prata, Logan Roberts, Emily Tarco, Rebecca Ramos Velasquez, Susan Wilky.
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