Picture Book Monday: “I Am Cherry Alive,” The Little Girl Sang

[osprey_archer]

Continuing my Barbara Cooney theme, I read the picture book in which she illustrates ”I Am Cherry Alive,” the Little Girl Sang, a poem by Delmore Schwartz, a mid-century American poet of whom I had never heard. Sorry, Mr. Schwartz.

The little girl is not only cherry alive, she is apple, she is plum, she is pit of peach, (she is deeply opposed to articles), she is red and gold and green and blue. What does this mean? I teetered between finding the poem exhilarating and finding it maddening, in a way makes me think irresistibly of Billy Collins’ poem Introduction to Poetry, in which he encourages his students to experience a poem,

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

Okay, Billy! I get it! I need to follow Barbara Cooney’s good example and just vibe with Delmore Schwartz’s little girl who is cherry alive and apple and plum and witch in a zoo, “I will always be me, I will always be new!”

(But also what does it mean to be cherry alive. What does it MEAN.)

Cooney’s illustrations are of course beautiful. I particularly like the ones illustrating the colors, the girl in her red coat and hat watching the red sunrise above the snow, and sitting beneath a golden tree, and crouched on a rock in a green bathing suit by a green pool in a deep green forest.

Comments

[asakiyume]

At some point I remember realizing that I didn't have to believe things. People usually have this realization I gather about faith related stuff, but I realized... I don't have to believe Freudianism! I don't have to believe in Maslow's hierarchy! Those are ideas. I can listen to them and say, Huh! Cool, interesting! And then decide not to believe them if I don't want.

It's a strategy I employ freeeeequently.

(It goes along with how so called fact-based science is so culturally laden. Yep. Can just smile and say no.)

[osprey_archer]

I remember reading about the gulags (it always goes back to gulags with me) and being so struck by how, in this situation where people simply could not meet their physiological and safety needs at the base of the pyramid, they just catapulted right past to the "love and belonging" level, and built these super-strong friendships in order to navigate the situation.

[asakiyume]

(it always goes back to gulags with me) 😂 --But also: I get it. Nothing says "in extremis" like a gulag, and if you see how people are in extremis, you're seeing something. And yes! Turns out you CAN jump to the top of the pyramid.