Small Words by Stephanie Van Orman

 This piece won first prize at the fair this weekend. Read to the end for the story behind the poem.

SMALL WORDS by Stephanie Van Orman

She used to talk in small words

When she wanted to explain something to me

Something I didn’t understand

And she did.

She used a baby voice

Like I was three instead of thirty-eight

At first, it was cute

She’d never seen maple leaves that big before

On the green by the lake

She picked up the leaves

The perfect ones

The best ones

When she had a proper collection

With veins like timelines that didn’t run forever

From green to yellow with the turning of the seasons

I had no idea what she planned to do with them

She brought them back to my place

Hoarded them in my daughter’s room

She collected more maple leaves by the river

I don’t think she saw the water

She struggled to see the stars

The second batch was less perfect

But they were still big

Still remarkable

The night before her flight out

I saw she’d filled her suitcase with the leaves

Dozens, one on top of another

Stuffed in grey Walmart bags

Who needed clothes?

They were maple leaves as big as the one on the Canadian flag we used to use as a door

That was when the baby voice came out

That was when the small words came out

And one big word... Experiment

That was her explanation for stuffing her bag full of leaves

An experiment to see if big leaves would dry out or rot in a plastic bag in a suitcase?

They wouldn’t last until she got home

She couldn’t find a word small enough to bring it into focus for me

She was always insufferably stubborn

And maple leaves didn’t look like a gun or a bomb to airport security

So I couldn’t stop her

And the only person who wanted to stop her was me

To stop her from measuring how long something fragile can last

When children become sophisticates so fast

When you can’t stay in the same place or stop time

Or be buried under a maple canopy on the harsh Canadian prairie

Where there’s only wind like ghosts

When she got home, I bit my tongue during our first phone call

Did the leaves arrive safely?

I didn’t ask.

Did she arrive safely?

This time.

She told me about her trip using very small words.

Author's Notes: I don't usually write poetry, but when I do, you can be sure it's about something so personal that it probably shouldn't be posted online. That's true about this poem too.

I was talking to one of my friend's mums, and she told me that people don't enter enough things in the fair. That was true when I was a little girl living in a rural town. I used to enter all kinds of things in the fair and get prize money. The money meant a lot to me when I was a kid, but I also loved walking around and looking at all the grown-up entries and the prize ribbons pinned to them. This summer, my friend's mum brought me an entry book, and I looked through it with interest. I decided to enter into three categories.

I would enter a crocheted baby blanket, and I would win first place with it. I knew I would win first place because I had made a crochet baby blanket in the spring that was so enchanting, no one else would be able to enter anything better. As a person who studies crochet baby blanket patterns as a hobby, I knew I was going to spill blood with my entry. Skip to the end of the story, I won first place and an extra gift certificate to a yarn store. The person who placed second did very well too. I was impressed that anyone came close to doing as well as me, and I was happy to see they were awarded a gift certificate too.

I also decided to enter a cross-stitch. I was less confident because it was small. When I thought of the nutso stuff my grandmother used to cross-stitch, I knew that if someone like her entered, I was going to lose. I did lose, and I lost big time (by a wide margin). The person who got first did a HUGE cross-stitch that won a special distinction award as one of the best at the fair. They deserved it. I got second, so I beat out other entries. I was very flattered.

Now for the poetry. I was very confident in my entry. As a novelist, I have written over three million words. The theme for the poem was 'Under the Maple Canopy'. Now, the key to winning is to reframe their theme. You can't give them what they expect. You have to give it back to them in a way they do not expect. What is expected in this case is frolicking, enjoying the sun, nature, and beauty. You have to give them that, but you also have to give them more. Widen the scope. Placing a grave under the maple canopy isn't merely unexpected; it's freakishly ruthless when placing it in our real world and making the occupant someone the author knows and loves. It drags in the reader's loved ones and insists that the audience relate, whether they like it or not. Also, when writing poetry, you have to make each of your words do double or even triple duty. It's real. It's got the mundane and the beautiful side by side, sometimes coexisting in the same word. Naturally, the poem is an observation of a real event. This is not fiction. This is why it's difficult to share poetry like this in public. It's not just about me. It's about other people, too, and will they enjoy the author's observation of them? Probably not.

One thing I believe completely is that everyone is entitled to their own story. They get to tell it their way, and no one is allowed to complain... even if they don't like it. Still, sharing personal poetry can have backlash from people who do not believe in freedom of expression the way I do (I have a story about this coming up that is very interesting).

Anyway, when I went to see the display at the fair and see how my poem was placed, I was only competing against one other poet. I stopped and read their poem thoughtfully. It was beauty, nature, communion, and it wasn't bad. It just wasn't what I was offering. The poem was like a single beam of light, while mine was like a movie playing in someone's head. The distinction was sharp, and I felt a little bad.

I wasn't there to see the person collect their poem. I was in another building picking up my crochet and cross-stitch, but my daughter was there. She won first place for digital illustration, and my poem was near her entry. She was there to pick it up for me. She saw the person who wrote the poem that lost to mine. It was someone she knew, even though I didn't recognize the name. It was a school administrator I'd had a very hot disagreement with probably seven years ago. During our conversation, I was literally one second off spitefully asking her for a pair of scissors and chopping off a chunk of my hair in her office. This sounds crazy out of context, but that was what she was suggesting was the best solution to the problem. She wasn't crazy for suggesting that under the circumstances, and neither was I for taking her suggestion seriously. In order to keep things in the correct perspective, it wasn't because I had a knot in my hair or because there was anything wrong with my hygiene. It wasn't a question of hygiene. But, I have never been that angry in a school in my life because she was implying that I wouldn't do absolutely anything for my child. That my pretty hair was more important to me than my child's well-being. And I was so intensely irate that I almost did it. Luckily, my daughter sprang to my rescue, saying that I didn't need to cut my hair. Then she explained why. We left. I saw that woman a few more times, but I never spoke to her again. I'm really glad I wasn't there at the same time to pick up my poem, and my daughter was sensitive enough to wait until she had gone before collecting my poem.

When I was a child, I believed that nothing in this world was more important than books. So much so that all my focus went into them, studying them, writing them. Not just my focus, but everyone's focus. Books! Books! Books! It has been a major revelation in my life to realize that the most important thing in this world is not books, but the child reading a book, studying a book, and writing a book. Honest to God, I was more pleased that my lovely daughter was sensitive to this woman's feelings than that I beat her. Sometimes the win isn't the win you were expecting, but it is much better.

As a side note, my daughter's book is very close to being published. I'll post a review on it when it's out. Please look forward to it.