Childhood is the kingdom where
Childhood is the kingdom whereThe poem Childhood is the Kingdom Where Nobody Dies, is written in open verse. It has no particular rhyme scheme and does not have any parameter. I was able to locate a couple of metaphors. In line 3 when she writes, "Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies" (3). Also in line 30 she writes, "To be grown up is to sit at the table with people who have died" (30).
I do not feel that Edna wrote this poem with much thought of rhyme schemes and iambicpentameter. Rather I think she wrote this poem out of a deep feeling she had inside her. Sometimes feelings can loose there meaning if you don not express them just the way they feel. I believe that is the case in this poem. This is a case where Edna just wanted to express a feeling excactly the way it felt inside of her.
To me, this poem comes across as a depressing relalization of no no longer having the innocents the being a child provides. I think Edna must have experinced a tragic loss of someone in her life who meant a great deal to her. I also think that she wishes she had spent more time with this person, or at least enjoyed the time they spent together more.
The first and second lines of this poem are very true. "Childhood is not from birth to a certain age and at a certain age the child is grown and puts away childish things" (1,2). I think what Edna is trying to express is that when you reach a particular age you don't just start being an adult. Being an adult is not something you just wake up one day an decide to be.
In the third and fourth lines she writes, "Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies. Nobody that matters, that is" (3, 4). I feel she is stating here that the chid is inoocent from adult feelings. When your a child death does not have a real meaning to you. She writes, "mothers and fathers don't die" (22), and for that matter brothers and sister do not either. When you are young death does not seem to have a impact unless it happens to someone that is in your immediate family. She even writes of the impersonal relationships that a child has with relatives. You can imagine how if the relative died the child might not even notice.
In lines 9 through 16 Edna writes about how a child might first encounter death first hand when the family cat dies. But the way she writes, " You fetch a shoe-box, but it's much too small, because she won't curl up now: So you find a bigger box" (13, 14), makes the experince seem so cheesey....
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