Fifteen minutes before new years I find an article tweeted by Huffington Post regarding a poem about the Connecticut shootings earlier in December. When I read the article all I could do is stare in shock. Who is this person who thinks they know the motive of Adam Lanza?
A 17-year old by the name of Courtni Webb wrote a poem which repeated the line, “I understand the killings in Connecticut” twice. She did not want to turn the assignment in but the poem was found by her teacher and submitted to the principal. The result was suspension and of course the media attention she received for writing the poem.
Allegedly on the page of the article, Webb’s mother posted the entire poem for armies of angry posters to read in the comment section. The poem is as follows.
“They want to hold me back
I run but they attack
My innocence I want back
I use to smile
They took my kindness for weakness
The silence the world will never get
I understand the killings in conneticut
I know why he pulled the trigger
The government is a shame
Society never wants too take the blame
Society puts these thoughts in our head
Misery loves company
If I can’t be loved, no one can
If I can’t be happy, no one will
I understand the killings in conneticut
If every starts out the same, why don’t we have the same opportunities
Why are we oppressed by a community of haters and blamers
When you don’t feel loved you hate the world
When you hate the there’s no exceptions
Why should they have innocence, when ours is gone…”
Courtni states, “The meaning of the poem is just talking about society and how I understand why things like that incident happened. So it’s not like I’m agreeing with it, but that’s how the school made it seem.” All I see when I read this poem is a pity party for the kid who attends an alternative school. The whole Connecticut shooting part could have been omitted and the poem would still have it’s meaning.
It is a little difficult to be unbiased about this poem because I do not think it is appropriate to write something like that. She claims to understand why Adam pulled the trigger. Why doesn’t she go to the parents of the children Adam killed and explain to them why they did not get to see the smiles on their children’s face on the day of Christmas? I lost my mother in 2011 a few days before Thanksgiving. I know it was hard for those parents to continue with the holidays despite losing a loved one. For Webb to act like she is being wrongly punished for saying what she said is comical at best.
This poem is about a girl who thinks the odds are stacked against her and not matter what she does to succeed she is always met with “haters” who “hate” on her. She claims she understands why Adam Lanza killed children because the cycle of “haters” spreading “hate” begins to grow inside until it eventually burst in to a rage. Webb asks why should the children who died that day be considered innocent because her innocence is gone.
Our society may be flawed but we make the choices to say or do the things we do. We have to make the conscious decision of weighing the pros and cons of all of our decisions. Courtni Webb should have done some considerable thinking before writing this poem. Since thinking is obviously not her strong suit she should just stick to trying to graduate from the California equivalent of the Can Academy.
Mrs. Critique 