Robert Frost called poetry “serious play” and this month’s Scientific American makes a claim for its primal importance to childhood development (they don’t mention poetry explicitly, but we know what they really mean). The magazine cites new studies that say children need unstructured free play for proper cognitive development. This “free play” is more than just signing up for rule-bound games at recess, but indulging in creative free-for-alls which help children develop strong social as well as communication skills.
To wit:
The child initiates and creates free play. It might involve fantasies—such as pretending to be doctors or princesses or playing house—or it might include mock fighting, as when kids (primarily boys) wrestle and tumble with one another for fun, switching roles periodically so that neither of them always wins. And free play is most similar to play seen in the animal kingdom, suggesting that it has important evolutionary roots.
(Could the same need for serious play apply to the development of poetry itself? Anyone from “Untitled New York” care to respond?).
And on a related note, this kid is just back from dental surgery:
that’s like my girlfriend peaking on mushrooms for the first time.
Posted By: nico vassilakis on February 3, 2009 at 10:01 pmReport this comment
See Giambattista Vico on this topic.
Posted By: Henry Gould on February 3, 2009 at 10:53 pmHistory is the play of the imagination. Poetry is hero-worship (Pound). Heroes are action figures.
Or Heraclitus, for that matter.
Here’s a poem I composed at age 4, watching my workaholic father go off to work. He heard me singing this to myself. He wrote it down in pencil on a housekey-tab (a little piece of cardboard) on his way out the door. My mother sent that key-tab to me , 50 years later.
PLAY, PLAY, IT’S TIME TO PLAY!
PLAY ALL DAY, THAT’S WHAT I SAY!
YOUR WORK IS DONE,
COME OUT IN THE SUN!
PLAY, PLAY, PLAY!
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