Charles Grosel’s poem, “In the Fourth Grade,” is a charming but ultimately trivial poem.

The charm comes from Grosel’s extended metaphor comparing ten-year-old boys to celibate monks. I like the way Grosel understands how seriously boys take their play. Boys do have their “rites and rituals, the laying on of hands [perhaps hands around a baseball bat to decide who goes first], the catechism of adventure cards [and baseball stats].”

Grosel goes a step further from that “easy monasticism” of the third stanza when he discusses, in the fourth stanza, the “hard equations of loss and redemption, / ceremonies of judgment and exile.” Winning and losing, being part of the in-crowd or not – those are, indeed “hard” for fourth graders.

But when Grosel introduces girls, his poem loses focus. First of all, I don’t think it’s realistic that a “boys only” fourth grader would immediately “emerge from his cowl / face aglow.” Rather, I think he might sneak a peek from inside his monastic cowl.

But what bothers me more is Grosel’s ending – “face aglow with the light of the convert.” What is the boy a “convert” to? Does one “convert” when one leaves monasticism? To me the use of the word “convert” is a misstep.

A more ambitious poem might have discussed the ten-year-old’s “fall” from his monastic life, a variation on the universal theme of a child’s ultimate fall from grace and innocence as he enters the “real” world. As it is, such a banal use of “convert” makes the poem cute, but nothing more.

NOTHING GOLD CAN STAY by Robert Frost

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.

truly no time here, although with replies in my head to both you and falcon... but i'll compress them into saying that I found "convert" to be quite okay -- the whole idea that a "convert" to something tends to go from adamantly opposed to aglow with feeling "anointed" (in-crowd) ...

Where I had a problem with word choices being a bit forced was with "sisters" (intended i think to continue the monastic theme by invoking the idea of sisters as in nuns, to refer to a group of girl playmates) ... and to some extent also with the word "even" in penultimate line -- I guess the idea being that, as the skull-necklace wearer, our protagonist here was supposed to exemplify the "hardest core" of the monastic group? ehhh ... well, okay...

I found the subject matter quite suited and the overall metaphor quite interesting for this delving back into the world of being ten ... and I recall that in my own 4th grade year was the first "leap year" of my conscious awareness and there was some silly 'tradition' that passed to the "sisters" of my 4th grade year that on leap year day, the girls had the "right" (and duty?) to chase the boys and -- do what, i don't quite recall - kiss them? make declarations to them? -- I personally was too shy for all that by i recall the playground pandemonium (and my own added sense of out-of-it-ness to not be caught up in the adrenalin of it all, or something -- my own sense of awkwardness, i'm sure) ...

The point being that I think the age is exactly right here, where the girls are the more ready aggressors in matters of initiating opposite-gender encounters and the boys still more resolutely into "ewww" ...

I thought for the most part the poet carried off his metaphor quite well, but with these caveats, mostly the "sisters" reference that pulled me back from it ...

And to falcon (among other comments but having to rush here), i think that monasticism is ONLY "easy" (your point being potentially well noted but...) when you're ten and don't yet (i have to project here, vis-a-vis boys but assuming) when you don't have a more mature knowledge or sense of what you're missing out on, i think age ten might be about the age for the only "easy" monasticism one might know ... I take it you are male, so I'll defer but I would think the "easy" is not so glib an adjective given the age group in question ...

I suppose what the poet is getting at is that the boy, attempting various cool hoodlum poses and such before the bell rings and the lines form, drops his mannerisms and learned street attitudes and takes on the proper behaviors and deference the nuns expect of him and the other fourth graders. Conversion, in this sense, is a pun, a weak one, in that one can relate this to how one converts currencies; the young man here converts his playground attitude to one that enables him to get along under the sister's watchful eye. It doesn't work, though, and something more is needed, another idea besides the easy resolution involving conversion experience is required. We have, as is, a well turned construction that delights with the indirect rhymes and disguised alliteration that lacks the third act; Billy Collins, or better, Thomas Lux would have been able to twist the readers off the neck. This is merely sweet and feeble by the end.

Actually, when I got to the "convert" line, I began to think that maybe this monkish boy would be better off being a girl. Does it strike anyone that perhaps there's a little nonparallel in this image of boyhood? On the surface it appears not, because the boy sees the light of the girls faces, intoning that he is a convert to that what highlights the girls. That said, the first part of the poem is all about boys, and being wrapped up in boys mannerisms and all, as if the religion this boy had within him, that makes him so monkish, is boyhood. Well then, he takes a look at girlhood, and becomes a convert?

It made me laugh a little when I read it again.

A note to all --

It's interesting that Ted, who went to a Catholic elementary school, is the only one who interpreted "she / and her sisters" to mean "nuns."

Everyone else, including me, interpreted them to mean "girls" -- even zinya, who mentioned a metaphoric reference to nuns.

So far, Ted's interpretation seems to work best, in that the boys, in the present of the nuns, would, indeed, want to appear like "converts" to religion, whether they meant it or not.

And if Ted is right, then the tone of the whole poem is a lot lighter than I had originally thought.

What do the rest of you think?

MA

I agree with your comments, MaryAnn, until your final argument with the word "convert." True, it appears to contradict the theme of monasticism, but the poet has already addressed that contradiction through the wearing of the skull, as opposed to rosary beads. As representative of a change in viewpoint, from a boys' world to one that includes the "rite" of the female, I, personally, find "convert" to be a most appropriate word, particularly in the context of this piece.

As for your statement that the poem is "trivial," I suppose that I again will display my ignorance, but is it a requirement that a poem be "ambitious?" The poet has carried his metaphor, chosen his language carefully, written of something that many relate to, and created a work that is, as you say, charming. I'd be happy to do as well.

As for your statement that the poem is "trivial," I suppose that I again will display my ignorance, but is it a requirement that a poem be "ambitious?" The poet has carried his metaphor, chosen his language carefully, written of something that many relate to, and created a work that is, as you say, charming. I'd be happy to do as well.

Nice to see you posting again, suei.

What you say above is true enough. Not every poem needs to be ambitious. But remember, this is Tuesday on Slate, when we PoemsFray wannabe critics get to throw about stronger-than-usual opinions. It's my nerdy way of having fun.

: - (

Mary Ann

.....carry on. : )

"Aglow" is such a positive word. It's been a long time since I was a young lass attending catechism classes, but I recall the expressions on our young faces at the approach of nuns as being far more akin to terror. I very much doubt that we could have wrested a look that anywhere near approximated "aglow," no matter how hard we tried. I believe our looks of trembling subjugation suited them just fine.

That makes sense.

Like Ted, my first reading here was Nuns and not other girls, though I was just as qucikly unsure whether he meant other girls. I think I favor the Nuns reading, but not Ted's interpretation. I think Ted's reading requires

He wears his hood pulled down around his face
like a slouching monk on his daily round, his hands
joined in the pouch at his waist, a skull at his neck

instead of a rosary, though its beaded
mysteries still prevail—joyful, sorrowful,
and glorious. He's content at ten to practice

the easy monasticism of boys at play,
their rites and rituals, the laying on of hands,
the catechism of adventure cards,

hard equations of loss and redemption,
ceremonies of judgment and exile,
a liturgy interrupted only when she

and her sisters draw near, a more recent rite
for which even he emerges from his cowl
face aglow with the light of the convert.

I think Ted's reading requires

I'm sitting here with bated breath, OneArt, waiting for you to finish your thought...... Just spit it out!

MA

Like Ted, my first reading was Nuns and not other girls, though I quickly saw that other girls was possible. I at first favored the Nuns reading, but not Ted's interpretation. The deference Ted speaks of requires an ironic reading of the last line: "face aglow with the light of the convert" and I just don't see that. I agree that the key here is the "conversion" and "the more recent rite" I'm unsure about both. "More recent rites" seems to speak to the girls paying more attention to the boys thing that happens around 4th or 5th grade so maybe other girls is correct. I guess it's possible the poet can mean both or intends to be ambigous; I don't know this poet well enough to say whtether that's the case or whether he's just being sloppy. Having written this, it occurs to me that the conversion is about sudeenly discovering girls, but also echos Ted's sense of deference to the Nuns. Could one argue that both are false and the true allegiance is to the boys? Seems a bit of a muddle to me, but maybe I'm just trying too hard>

He wears his hood pulled down around his face
like a slouching monk on his daily round, his hands
joined in the pouch at his waist, a skull at his neck

instead of a rosary, though its beaded
mysteries still prevail—joyful, sorrowful,
and glorious. He's content at ten to practice

the easy monasticism of boys at play,
their rites and rituals, the laying on of hands,
the catechism of adventure cards,

hard equations of loss and redemption,
ceremonies of judgment and exile,
a liturgy interrupted only when she

and her sisters draw near, a more recent rite
for which even he emerges from his cowl
face aglow with the light of the convert.

I think the phrase "a more recent rite" should put the matter to bed re the nuns versus girls issue. Were these sisters nuns, how could "a more recent rite" apply? I think for this reason I assumed immediately that the reference was to girls, and a budding awareness in the boy that they do something to him now that is different and mysterious and erotic, though he does not yet know the word nor, probably, the exact nature of his new feelings.

But his face is "aglow with the light of a convert": he may not be able to explain it, but he knows he likes it.

Now that you turned me on to the OPP, MaryAnn, I left a few trivial poems of my own there. Please have a look. Please critique. Be as cruel as you must be.

Thanks.