Childhood is a mosaic of experiences - at least in terms of remembered youth. Small crystals of transparent reality, colored by the hue of the moment, past or present, take on an abstract quality when viewed closely: the mosaic only takes on meaning when pieced together and viewed from a distance. Very few people can actually witness their past from a distance, however - and who would want to outside of the analyst's couch? - so the personality of youth quite often remains one of refracted reflection, specifics seen only at juxtaposed angles of remembrance. For this reason poetry is the ideal creative medium for attempts to express the childhood experience.
Poetry is art - and art tries not to lose the life within an experience, even while illuminating it. Poetry shares the visual quality of childhood memories; it is a prismatic art. The poet takes an experience and breaks down the living, breathing moment into a spectrum of colors: words - sounds, reality - metaphor, specific - symbol, memory - voice. Like a prism, the poem bends the light of remembrance and separates its shadings; it is a technique-based, almost "scientific" dissection - but, still like a prism, the successful poem pricks from the observer an appreciative "Ah!" of uninhibited recognition.
In "The One Girl at the Boys Party," Sharon Olds' 1983 paean to her teenage daughter's coming-of-age, the "Ah!" comes from the bold juxtaposition of pubescent sexuality into both physical and mathematical terms.
When I take my girl to the swimming party
I set her down among the boys. They tower and
bristle, she stands there smooth and sleek,
her math scores unfolding in the air around her.
Olds remembers something about being a teenager that most non-poets forget: the metier of their lives is the rhythm-and-response of school. Physicality of the animal sort is not gone - the boys "tower and bristle," her daughter is "smooth and sleek" - but ...