After sharing a poem from Creative Kids magazine, "It's Not the Iron's Fault," by 15-year-old Joe Block, I asked 10-year-old Nathan to write his own personification poem featuring an object blamed for a person's errors. Nathan immediately thought of a basketball getting blamed for a player's mistakes. I asked him to emulate the structure of Block's poem, which began with an iron pointing out its many attributes ("took the wrinkles out of your clothes"; "gave your clothes that special warmth"; and "made the clothes look as if they belonged to royalty") before the object poses questions to the human user of the iron about why she/he yells at the iron for ruining clothes, burning fingers, etc., when those problems arose from the user's misuse of, or neglect while using, the iron.
Here is Nathan's poem, featuring a talking basketball:
It’s Not the
Ball’s Fault
by Nathan, age 10
So the next time
you scream at me,
think about all
that I did for you.
When there was a
fifty-fifty chance to go in
in a tight game, I
decided to go in.
I was also the one
who gave you enough backspin to make
that basket you
thought you would make.
So why do you
scream at me when I don’t go through the net?
Remember, you were
the one who passed the ball
too hard to your
teammate.
And remember when
you lost control of the ball
and someone stole
it?
That was you who
dribbled too hard.
You’re also the
one that controls me,
who gives me
backspin,
so when you make a
bad shot, don’t expect it to go in.
So why do you
scream at me every time you lose the ball,
Or you don’t make
a shot? All of that’s your fault.
So remember, it’s
not the basketball’s fault,
If anything, it’s
your fault.
