In my wanderings around the interwebs, I stumbled across a blog hop happening this marvelous first day of summer called the My So-Called Teenage Life Blog Hop. It’s being hosted by Christa Desir and Amy Sonnichsen and we’re supposed to “Dust off those old sappy journals or high school notebooks filled with bad poetry” and pick something to share.
It sounded like so much fun I decided to participate. Just one problem – I didn’t keep a journal in high school. I know that probably puts me in the minority of writers in general, but especially YA writers. I think I spent so much of my time reading books and living fictional adventures that it never occurred to me to think deep thoughts about my own super boring life.
I did write a few poems, although none of those angsty, yearning, romantic sonnets or deep, philosophical, navel-gazing poems from me. Instead, my masterpiece was a spoof of Lewis Carroll’s
Jabberwocky. We had to memorize
Jabberwocky one year, and it’s now the only poem I can still recite in full, which is strange considering all the bizarre words. Anyway, at some point I rewrote
Jabberwocky as
Jabberflu-y. I remember being mighty pleased with myself when I wrote it, and it still makes me smile when I think about it because it was so fun and silly. I'm not sure it really fits the blog hop theme since it doesn't have Angela Chase-type teen angst, but it is a peak into how my weirdo adolescent mind worked.
Unfortunately, I looked in all the likely hiding places, but I couldn’t find it. I hope it’s in storage because the world should not be deprived of the awesomeness that was Jabberflu-y. But in another instance of my brain retaining the most random stuff, I do remember parts of it. So since I signed up to share my teen writing, I’ll post the parts I can recall. And I’m certain the sections I’ve forgotten were the truly hysterical parts that practically sang with their mastery of language.
Jabberflu-y
‘Twas feverish and the snotty nose
Did run and dribble down the face
…
Beware the Jabberflu, my son!
The body that aches, the eyes that itch!
…
A-choo! A-choo! Bless you, bless you!
The clogged up lungs went hacka-hack!
He felt dead with his stuffed head
And collapsed upon his back.
“And hast thou caught the Jabberflu?
Come to my arms, my poor sick boy!
Drink your OJ, you’ll get better I pray!”
…
And that’s all my creaky ol’ brain can muster up – although I’m kind of impressed since it’s more than twenty years later. I actually wouldn’t be that upset if my brain decided to relinquish that particular hard drive space to, oh I don’t know, remembering where I put my keys.
Did you keep a journal or write poetry when you were a teen? If so, what do you think when you read it now? If not, do you wish you had kept one?
In my wanderings around the interwebs, I stumbled across a blog hop happening this marvelous first day of summer called the My So-Called Teenage Life Blog Hop. It’s being hosted by Christa Desir and Amy Sonnichsen and we’re supposed to “Dust off those old sappy journals or high school notebooks filled with bad poetry” and pick something to share.
It sounded like so much fun I decided to participate. Just one problem – I didn’t keep a journal in high school. I know that probably puts me in the minority of writers in general, but especially YA writers. I think I spent so much of my time reading books and living fictional adventures that it never occurred to me to think deep thoughts about my own super boring life.
I did write a few poems, although none of those angsty, yearning, romantic sonnets or deep, philosophical, navel-gazing poems from me. Instead, my masterpiece was a spoof of Lewis Carroll’s
Jabberwocky. We had to memorize
Jabberwocky one year, and it’s now the only poem I can still recite in full, which is strange considering all the bizarre words. Anyway, at some point I rewrote
Jabberwocky as
Jabberflu-y. I remember being mighty pleased with myself when I wrote it, and it still makes me smile when I think about it because it was so fun and silly. I'm not sure it really fits the blog hop theme since it doesn't have Angela Chase-type teen angst, but it is a peak into how my weirdo adolescent mind worked.
Unfortunately, I looked in all the likely hiding places, but I couldn’t find it. I hope it’s in storage because the world should not be deprived of the awesomeness that was Jabberflu-y. But in another instance of my brain retaining the most random stuff, I do remember parts of it. So since I signed up to share my teen writing, I’ll post the parts I can recall. And I’m certain the sections I’ve forgotten were the truly hysterical parts that practically sang with their mastery of language.
Jabberflu-y
‘Twas feverish and the snotty nose
Did run and dribble down the face
…
Beware the Jabberflu, my son!
The body that aches, the eyes that itch!
…
A-choo! A-choo! Bless you, bless you!
The clogged up lungs went hacka-hack!
He felt dead with his stuffed head
And collapsed upon his back.
“And hast thou caught the Jabberflu?
Come to my arms, my poor sick boy!
Drink your OJ, you’ll get better I pray!”
…
And that’s all my creaky ol’ brain can muster up – although I’m kind of impressed since it’s more than twenty years later. I actually wouldn’t be that upset if my brain decided to relinquish that particular hard drive space to, oh I don’t know, remembering where I put my keys.
Did you keep a journal or write poetry when you were a teen? If so, what do you think when you read it now? If not, do you wish you had kept one?
