Sara Biggs Chaney

From According to our Records

I.

Pinch turn, pinch turn, pages slip
but she holds on.

Max, what have you done
with the candy, Max.

Word points down,
sings a swing,
M-ax, M-ax.

You know that too much candy
will make you ill.

Fussy words walk in the nose,
super step quick.
Clip the last one, ill.
Ear dip, shoulder brush,
clean nod, clap, again.
Then Slip slip rustle
for the quiet boy who looks.
Big breath hands.

Help me make the bread Max,
before Grandma arrives
.

Now Max, a big one,
PARTY, red horn
in a birthday balloon,
pop-sing.

Echo, high, a bring brang, wrong.
Eyes hear the bad tones everywhere. Body guards the story.

Developmental Pediatrics
Intake Assessment

Jenna Brown, 24 mos, presents with hypotonia and macrocephaly. Hyperlexia. Possible a-typical Retts? ASD PDD-NOS diagnosis pending. Lack of eye contact, limited speech, echolalia. Social language impairment.
No eye contact with examiner. No answer to direct questions. Stimming. Turning pages of a magazine, repeating words from a television show.

 

V.

11 ½ is halfway to 12. Because I am 11 ½ and also because I am
a FIFTH GRADER, I am very ready
for middle school and I know a lot.

How to not get detention. I know. Don’t talk. Do your work.
How to open your locker. I know.
Spin the numbers, right, left, right.

How to be very smart. I know.
Use the strategies.
Find the facts in the book.
Always use predicate expanders. Remember things.
Their, they’re,
colonies, corneas,
executive, judicial.

You might like to know:

I have my own strategies.
I am practicing every day.

Munroe Elementary School
3rd Quarter Report Card
Grade 5

Reading Comprehension-- 1

Writing-- 1

Spelling-- 1

Math-- 1

Mrs. Brown,
Please understand.
These things don’t mean much
When it comes to Jenna.
She does her best,
And fours are not in her future.

 

 

Sara Biggs Chaney read her first and angriest poem while standing on top of a desk in the 10th grade. In college, she carefully printed the saddest poem she knew, Musee des Beaux Arts, onto the left side of a greeting card. On the right side she wrote: "Goodbye. I love you." These days, she still believes that some things — no doubt the most important — are best left to poetry.