The poem ‘First Day of School’ was written by Roger McGough who was a famous English poet. The poem epitomizes the naivety, ignorance, lack of understanding and anxieties of a child during his or her first day in school. The poem not only explores the innocence of the child but also the child’s curiosity.
The poem is goes deep into the mind of a child on the initial stages of joining the actual world. The experience is sometimes bewildering and hilarious however it provides adults with the wisdom of a child that adults usually lose touch with as the years go on.
The poet has intentionally avoided the use of poetic techniques to clearly show the simplicity that children are associated with compared to adults. The poem is the way a child would express himself or herself with complete innocence and no complexities. There is no rhyme in the poem as well. To a certain extent the poem mimics incoherent observations that a child would make in a new environment. To help emphasize the feeling that the poem is written by a child the poet has intentionally misspelled certain words. Since children do not have any knowledge in literary writing they will certainly misspell words therefore the reader believes the child’s innocence.
The poem is presented from the complete view of a child. The child observes the other children as they play and takes note of the manner in which some are secluded from the ongoing games. This could be because they are timid or have come in late making them the ‘new playmate’. The child notices the rails surround the school. The teacher tries to handle his anxiety. The child finds the games played by the other kids to be too physical and secluding. He takes note that the other children ‘must have been born in uniform’ or are always restrained and they are now discharging all the energy they had repressed.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
The poem is dominated by the child’s feelings of insecurity, his isolation from the rest of the kids together with the fear of being in a new setting with strange buildings. The child has the impression that the school railings are meant to lock out monsters which must be quite terrifying to the child. The other cause for alarm for the child is ‘lessins’ which is actually the word lessons misspelled. He is convinced the ‘lessins’ are some sort of slick creatures with a holding tank known as ‘glassrooms’ which is actually classrooms. The child having been left alone longs for the mother independence is just too much to handle at this point.
The curiosity of the child turns to that of hopefulness at the end of the poem. He sees himself as being more grown-up compared to other kids hence his silent criticism of the rougher kids. In addition to that he finds some sense of relief in the fact that in case he or she forgets her name then from the name tag the teacher will be able to read the name. The poet uses comic relief to display the child’s reassurance.
This poem should be read with the complete innocence of a child in mind and does not bear any deep meaning.
