Confident

by Harshita Das aged 14

Matters of judging
Intellect are relative
Those guys in glasses
Sitting front-seat in classes
Might be scientifically

Certified Genius,
But the baker’s boy next door
Will always be best
At cakes and flipping the flour
Statistically you are

Unlikely to be
A flop at all things
In this world, so rise
Hold your head with pride; Focus
Your efforts, they’re not in vain

You might not be best
But better than average is
Enough to impress
Your friends at parties and grab
A proud self-identity

4 Responses to “Confident”

  • Roger Stevens

    Very clever. Four verse tanka. Well done. A couple of years (?) ago I seem to remember, I challenged you to a sonnet. I wonder what you’d make of that now…

    Reply
  • Harshita Das

    Thank you, although rereading it, it seems I did mess up the third verse.

    Yeah, I remember the sonnet, although I’m afraid I never did understand your criticisms of it. Two years later, and I still don’t know what ‘beats’ are.

    Reply
    • Roger Stevens

      Beats – is just a way of saying where the stresses fall. Imagine listening to a piece of music which has a beat. The lines of a sonnet go di dum di dum di dum di dum di dum Where the dum is the stressed beat.

      Reply
  • Harshita Das

    Ah. I’m afraid I never quite grasped the concept of stressed syllables in English. I understand it has something to do with how words are pronounced, although I can’t figure out the difference between words where the stress is on the second syllable and ones where the stress is on the first one, no matter how many times I listen to it.

    Reply
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