Writing by Jan Dean

This poem is unique in form and idea. The first stanza has no capitalization of punctuation. It starts coherently enough, but as the lines continue, the spelling gets progressively worse. The writing reflects a person is shock. I had some trouble understanding what it was about the first time I read it because of the spellings. After I read it again, I was able to see part of the image the author was describing. The way it was written also made me think about a child. It looks like it could have been written or seen through a child's eyes. The last stanza seems like someone, probably a teacher, commenting on the first stanza. It talks about good grammar and spelling and length. Dean is really making the argument that good writing doesn't depend on structure, even if the teacher can't see that.