poetry anaylsis

Hey World, Here I Am! by Jean Little
Wars - pg 13

Jean Little who is legally blind from birth moved from Tiwan to Guelph in 1940. She didn't allow her blindness to get in the way of her education and attended the University of Toronto. She also lived across the street for a small period of time.

This poem is about how its easy to judge a situation but when you are in a similar situation it's hard to use the same judgment you once had. This shows that Jean understood the evil of wars between nations. Jean has a sister, children and grandchildren and I'm sure that situations like the poem have happened in reality, but I think this particular poem could be about blindness. The war of going blind with age something she would like to stop but in the end it's inevitable.

"When I was in Grade Two, I said to my father,
'I think wars are wrong!
People should be told to stop all this fighting right now.
If I were crowned Queen of  the World,
I'd make wars against the law.'
My father said I had something there,
But he didn't seem terribly excited.
I could not understand him.

Then I went upstairs and caught my sister Marilyn
Playing with my new paper dolls without my permission!

We had a war"