Page 5

By Jack Joseph Smith

As soon as the brain seeks As soon as the Eyes open Writing Children are ancient, hieroglyphic, speaking and seeing, let them make that word Up in the morning saying your name, and looking past life, out, sort of, while hopefully seeing windows go by. The child makes an inscriptisiom, the letter belongs to the child, and the child loves the letter for it Secretly, these letters move as they grow, and the child understands that the symbols feel this wonder as well Two im time make one thing appear is everything about immagination; whistle, sing, spit, and drop Over and edge; all good poetry for a toddler What the heck, an unknown world for an infant as well, sizing up Definately we can get alone with the silence Before or after may become explosive Then that's the risk we should know, writing is about:

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

This page treats children as the first makers of writing, turning letters, naming, play, and infancy into a theory of poetic imagination.

The page argues that writing begins before adult mastery, in the child's half-verbal relation to symbols. Its misspellings and handwritten corrections matter because they make the poem perform the unstable, generative state it describes.

Claude

An ars poetica that locates the origin of writing in infancy: 'Children are ancient, hieroglyphic,' and 'the letter belongs / to the child' who 'loves the letter for it / Secretly.' The poem makes inscription bodily and pre-verbal - 'whistle, sing, spit, and drop / Over and edge; all good poetry for a toddler' - and ends naming risk: 'Definately we can get alone with the silence / Before or after may become explosive,' so that 'writing is about:' that open-ended danger. The page's own misspellings ('inscriptisiom,' 'immagination,' 'Definately') enact the unstable, learning hand it celebrates.