Former US poet laureate features 12-year-old Max Mendelsohn’s “Ode to Marbles”; lest you suppose the former laureate is losing his, wait until you experience the poem.
About the poem, Kooser remarks: “I have always enjoyed poems that celebrate the small pleasures of life. Here Max Mendelsohn, age 12, of Weston, Massachusetts, tells us of the joy he finds in playing with marbles.
Here’s a teaser:
I love the sound of marbles
scattered on the worn wooden floor,
like children running away in a game of hide-and-seek.
I love the sight of white marbles . . .
The Success of Small Pleasures
The 12-year-old pulls it off. The poem is surprisingly refreshing. Of course, it is not terribly profound, but what can one expect in profundity from one so young?
As Kooser says, “celebrat[ing] the small pleasures of life” is enjoyable. And it is interesting as well as informative to see what a pre-adolescent boy finds worth celebrating.
The success of the poem results in no small part from the fact that the young poet is not straining too much to sound mature. The last line is a little wobbly, but overall, the poem is enjoyable.
To read the entire poem, please go to American Life in Poetry: Column 163.
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