I'm very interested in what some people might come up with.
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- All My Pwoblems by James W. Hall - FictionDB.
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Thank you and I cant wait to read some of your other pieces. Mr Hall, You truly are an inspiration to all with your pieces. I loved how you managed to bring comedic relief to a truly important problem which is our place in society. I look forward to seeing any future pieces. Your fan, Johnathon Treon.
Maybe Dat’s Your Pwoblem Too | Reading and Writing with Ian and Isabella
A really great and interesting piece of literature. I was honestly very confused at first. Your explanation cleared a lot of things up. When I taught Freshman English, I used this poem every semester. The students loved it. So happy to find this now, so many years later. My teacher was explaining this to our class a bit.. How by this poem it talks about who you are and that you have to live with it like he said you can't burn the suit you're born with But I was thinking a bit more about it and did the poet have speech issues.. Which is why it sounds like a child wrote it.
Because maybe he did, I mean it makes sense because that is his suit and that's how his poem relates to his life. Phenomenal, absolutely outstanding, Mr. Not only did your poem make and evolve my poetic outlook, but it transformed my dexterity and its benevolance is going up on all of my refridgerators in my home. Hall, My students and I have been studying and analyzing this poem for the past two days.
I just want to let you know that it struck a chord with my students, and they discussed it with such depth and passion. It was a level of depth--personal sharing--that I never experienced in most of my other classes or during previous school years. Thank you for this poem. I hope I'm doing this poem justice when I teach it.
As a parent of children who have been through years of speech therapy, I thought I'd share with you my and my child's perspective--this same child had a teacher who used the poem in a junior high class. I do not find the poem funny nor did my child. In fact, when my child was asked to read a line out loud in class, he was offended. He has worked extraordinarily hard to overcome his struggles with speech and should not have to relive them, even in just one line.
Unfortunately, the teacher thought the poem was funny and was offended when my child did not. Not all of the students enjoyed the poem though many might say they did to get a better grade. I have no objection to you writing this poem; however, I would suggest teachers not use it in class. To me, it seems politically incorrect and insensitive. We don't after all use poems in class that are written in a ghetto or Hispanic voice and laugh at them.
Many children have gone through speech therapy, and some are very sensitive about it. Often, the teacher won't know who these children are.
“Maybe Dats Your Pwoblem Too”
My child's teacher should have been a lot more sensitive to this. Thank you for providing an opportunity to comment on this. It's very surprising to find that I, an eighth grade student could analyze this wonderful poem similar to the poet. You are a truly talented poet and I hope to develop a style as brilliant and unique as you've created in this poem. Feel free to post comments or further questions either at the end of this post, or in the guest book section of this site.
First, you should realize that just because a writer says something about their own work, that doesn't automatically mean their interpretation is better than yours. Some writers have far too much pride in their own view of their work and don't trust alternative views. But the truth is, a good reader can see stuff in my poem that I didn't see. So feel free to take the following with several grains of salt. One question that gets asked frequently is: After six years of college teaching, I'd just gotten tenure at the university where I teach in Miami and I knew, given the difficult job market, that it was going to be very hard to find a different job somewhere else, so more than likely I'd probably be right there teaching the same courses at that same university and having the same routines many years later.
So I just better accept where I was and try to make the best of it. This is my 36th year of teaching at Florida International University. At the time the thought was kind of depressing. I was also struggling with the whole idea of being a writer. It's a tough profession--especially as a poet. A lot of rejection all the time. Maybe fifty poems rejected for every one accepted. That wears on you. Kind of like Spiderman getting caught in a web of his own making.
I can't remember why exactly I chose Spiderman. I guess I was thinking that as a kid I'd always dreamed of being a writer--and that I'd thought that being one would be like being a superhero of some kind. So I started to wonder if maybe even superheroes got bored with their routines, and their personalities just like normal people did. Voila, the poem began to take shape. When this poem was written, back in or so, I hadn't read a Spiderman comic in years, so some of what I describe in the poem is factually wrong. I've mixed him up with Batman a little, for one thing.
You could describe these "errors" as "poetic license" or you could just say I didn't know what I was talking about. Personally, I don't think that makes a big difference, but there are some readers who disagree.
The speech impediment which might be considered politically incorrect these days simply started out as a technique to try to be funny, but it turned into more than that. As I wrote in that Elmer Fudd kind of voice, I found places in the poem where the words actually meant something different in the new speech my heart beat at a different wate weight I was also thinking that even superheroesmust be flawed in some way. They LOOK like they have wonderful lives—just as writers dobut that's all from the outside.
But when you get close and really inspect them, and hear how they talk, wow, they're just like the rest of us, pimples, warts and all. Of course "buining" one's suit is the punchline of the poem. It's a hard thing to do--recreate yourself, reinvent yourself. Become someone different, someone new. Throw away one identity and mask and put on another. We all struggle with that in some way or another.
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We want to change, to grow, to abandon one set of personality features for better ones. That's why people go to school, to church, to the shrink, and it's one of the reasons why we write. But it's a very hard thing to do. Old habits die hard.
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But I'd be willing to entertain alternate views. Till der he is. Some poor dumb color TV slob an I fall on him and we westle a widdle until I get him all woped. He is a symbol because he represents people individually. The poem explains that even people like Spiderman has problems. He represents the bosses and people who are in charge. No matter what, he has to listen to him and do what he says. Even though he may seem like he is in charge, the governor has his own problems too. The flame resistant suit: This represents the change of identity people wish they could make or become or even not be.
In this case Spiderman wants to dispose of his identity as Spiderman because he wants to become something else. There is no figurative language. The whole poem is situational irony because most people see Spiderman as a hero and infallible, but here we see him not wanting to be Spiderman. It is the complete opposite as what we normally think.
S- Line 5 of 2nd stanza: T- The title perfectly explains the underlying meaning of the poem. Hall tries to explain that everyone had problems including Spiderman. Even though it can be interpreted as a funny poem, the problems of the world can be related not only to an individual but everyone as a whole. Many people become bound to their problems and cannot easily become detached from them. They feel like they are forced to live with them. People ponder on the idea that Spiderman has it made. Being a superhero he lives life to the fullest, having popularity and defeating the villains.
However, even Spiderman wants to be someone else. So you can imagine from their perspective that it wasn't dat funny! I, myself, found the poem very entertaining and got the impression that the message was for every one of us. Eventually, we become locked into our suits and are unable to change even if we want to. This was poem was funny when my teacher read it for my class. I think it is hilarious and entertaining. Tat ws the punnyist ting i ever herd I'm winging it right now, and using your poetry blog.
Please post the comments f for me - but not this message. Manson I think this poem is very unquie and funny to say Ithink the poem is trying to say be who you want to be not who someone else wants you to be!
This is a great poem. But I think he's right. He has a point. My dad says he hates his job, he wants to get out of construction altogether, but maybe his "suit won't buin" either. Dad and this guy who talks like Elmer Fudd, and even Mom, are all in the same boat. Their "suits won't buin. This poem was hilarious. I started to read it out loud to hear all of the mistakes the little boy has when he's talking.
My favourite part was when the boy talks about burning his suit and complains that it's flame resistant, like that's a bad thing. The little boy obviously got bored of pretending to be Spider-man so he starts talking about all of the lame things he does, what a silly little boy. This poem was funny and had some very deep meaning, like when you are given a responsibility you have to follow through just like the little boy must follow through on pretending to be Spider-man.
All da dumb jokes: No flies on you, ha ha, and da ones about what do I do wit all doze extwa legs in bed. Well, dat's funny yeah. You get doze crazy calls fwom da Gubbener askin you to twap some booglar who's only twying to wip off color T. Now, what do i cawre about T. But I pull on da suit, da stinkin suit, wit da sucker cups on da fingers, and get my wope and wittle bundle of equipment and den I go flying like cwazy acwoss da town fwom woof top to woof top.