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Serious Play and Dental Surgery

By Travis Nichols

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:

2009-02-03

Comments (2)

  • On February 3, 2009 at 10:01 pm nico vassilakis wrote:

    that’s like my girlfriend peaking on mushrooms for the first time.
    Report this comment

  • On February 3, 2009 at 10:53 pm Henry Gould wrote:

    See Giambattista Vico on this topic.
    History 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!
    Report this comment


Posted in Group Blog, Poetry News on Tuesday, February 3rd, 2009 by Travis Nichols.

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