by Susan Terris
I was in kindergarten at a K through 8 school that had an annual Christmas program on the stage in the gym. It always featured students from every grade. I was 5 and the only one from my class chosen. My mother taught me to recite "The Night Before Christmas" (written by Clement Clark Moore) by heart and dressed me up as one of Santa's elves with a pom-pom hat, a brown suit with a red belt, and my brown saddle shoes from Lasky's. When I walked onto the stage holding the book, everyone cheered and laughed, because I was so small. At the front center of the stage, I opened the book, and speaking in a loud voice, I recited it all. Some people in the audience giggled, but I was sure it was because they thought I was cute. After the Christmas program was over, my mother rushed up and leaned forward to whisper in my ear. I was sure she was going to say I had been wonderful. But, instead, she told me quietly that I'd "read" the poem holding the "The Night Before Christmas" upside-down. Yes. So, I can tell you in one short sentence what I found out about books and poetry at five-years-old:
YOU’D BETTER LEARN TO READ!
Susan Terris is a freelance editor and the author of 7 books of poetry, 17 chapbooks, 3 artist's books, and 2 plays. Journals include The Southern Review, Georgia Review, Prairie Schooner, Rattle, Denver Quarterly, The New Verse News, and Ploughshares. Poems of hers have appeared in Pushcart Prize and Best American Poetry. Her newest book is Dream Fragments, which won the Swan Scythe Press Award. Ms. Terris is editor emerita of Spillway Magazine and a poetry editor at Pedestal.