ABSTRACT
In this part I will look at some poems in which there is evidence of children learning about themselves. There is such learning in almost all children’s writing, of course, but I am concerned here with a particular kind, where the teaching, the learning and the writing are all helping us to look inwards; first to the body, and second to the personality. The theoretical structure that holds much of this part together is, to use religious language, prayer, or, to use more neutral language, meditation. Each of us carries inside him or herself the face of God, a unique icon designed in negotiation with—or opposition to—that God over years of thought and experience. But for those who believe in God without being aware of it, I will take some of the metaphysical heat out, and say I am concerned here with reflection and attention (‘I was quiet for/a long time’).
