"The School Children"

“The School Children” by Louise Glück was one of the poems that I found especially interesting because only close analysis reveals a deeper, more significant meaning. Just on the surface, the poem seems to be about a simple life moment—young children going to school. However, the poem is actually more about a struggle between the mothers and teachers. As the children “go forward with the little satchels,” the mothers “have labored.” The images of hard-working mothers suggest that the mothers’ work makes the children go forward. Even the structure of the poem indicates that the mothers dictate the children’s actions. The first stanza and last stanza are the only stanzas that mention the mothers. It is almost as if the mothers enclose the children as they try to protect them from the outside world. Such analysis then begs the question—what is the outside world?

The outside world could be the school, filled with judgmental and powerful teachers. Although the mothers struggle to send their children to the teachers, they continue to work to impress the teachers. Still, the apples gathered are “like words of another language.” There is a certain disconnection between the teachers and mothers as the teachers are “on the other shore.” It seems like the children are caught in the war between the teachers and the mothers. Amidst the overbearing teachers that wait “behind the great desks” and the mothers “scour the orchards,” there is no good for the children. In fact, the line “How orderly they are—the nails/ on which the children hang” makes it seem as if the children are themselves hanging. Perhaps then, Glück has a very negative attitude towards schooling. Although the mothers seek their children’s success, their labor is having the opposite effect. Finally, the last line of the poem reaffirms the fact that there is a subtle war between the teacher and mothers possibly for control over the children. The inclusion of the word “ammunition” suggests that gathering the apples is a way for the mothers to still maintain control over the children and their school lives. However, there is “little ammunition,” implying that the mothers lose the war in the end.

After reading “The School Children,” I started working upon my own poem. However, I realized that capturing a life moment is very difficult. Even more, I must capture that moment in an artistic and beautiful way. Now that I am working on my own poem, I appreciate the work of gifted poets so much more. The fact that Louise Glück could incorporate so much meaning into so few lines astounds me. Even the colors in the poem have their own meaning. The “gray” limbs of the tree could point to the gradual aging of the children as they go from their mothers’ hands to the teacher’s hands. Or the “gray” could be representative of the gray area that is present between the teacher and the mothers. Furthermore, although Glück might not have intentionally added all the meaning that I see, I think such analysis allows me to understand the poem in a much more personal way.