On Turning Ten

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1995

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Form and Meter

“On Turning Ten” is written in free verse, without any structured meter or rhyme scheme. It is comprised of five stanzas: seven lines, nine lines, seven lines, four lines, and five lines; the lines also vary in length. Rather than structuring the poem mathematically, Collins separates his stanza based on tone and theme. Each one represents a slightly different tone and level of maturity, from the childish drama of the opening stanza to the more introspective melancholy of the final stanza. The narrative arc of the five stanzas can be seen as a parallel to the arc of an entire lifespan.

The free verse form keeps the poem feeling conversational, mimicking the rhythm of speech between friends. This direct, intimate simplicity is a hallmark of Collins’s poetry—a comfortable sense of the “everyman” underlaid with a more complex poignancy.

Consonance, Assonance, and Alliteration

Despite the poem’s lack of a formal rhyme scheme, it does engage in a sense of rhythm using repeated consonants and vowels. In the first stanza, the S sound is repeated first in “something, / something worse than any stomach ache” (Lines 2-3) and then again in “spirit,” “psyche,” and “soul” (Lines 5-7). “[M]easles of the spirit” and “mumps of the psyche” (Lines 5-6) have a similar cadence in the repeating M and S sounds.

The second stanza makes use of repeated sounds, most clearly in the “mpl” in “simplicity” and “complexity” (Lines 10-11) and in the Ts in “tell,” “too,” “forgotten,” “perfect,” “beautiful,” and “two” (Lines 8-11). In the second half of the stanza, these harsh consonants fade back into the softer M and S sounds in “make myself invisible,” “a glass of milk,” “seven,” and “soldier” (Lines 14-16). This suggests that the earlier part of the stanza reflects an external conversation—the child speaking to an adult—and the second half reflects a more internal look at his own imaginary world.

The third stanza moves into W and L sounds in “the window / watching the late afternoon light,” “fell,” and “solemnly” (Lines 17-19). These letters take on a darker, more melancholy atmosphere appropriate with the shift in tone. The fourth stanza favors N sounds: “beginning of sadness,” “the universe in my sneakers,” “imaginary friends,” “turn,” and “number”; and M sounds: “myself” and “time” (twice [Lines 24-27]). The final stanza begins to lean into softer vowels like the Y sounds in “yesterday,” “used to,” and “you;” and the parallel vowel sound bookending the stanza in “believe” and “bleed” (Lines 28-32). These literary devices are likely used instinctually rather than consciously, communicating the shifting moods and themes of the piece.

Metaphor

“On Turning Ten” uses metaphor to interesting effect, because sometimes it is meant figuratively and other times literally. The first stanza uses metaphors for illness: “a measles of the spirit, / a mumps of the psyche, / a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul” (Lines 5-7). These are intended to illustrate the severity of the catastrophe at hand, because for the child there exists no other language which can put his feelings into words. The metaphors in the second stanza, however, are presented as literal transformations. The narrator never says he pretended, or he acted as or played at; he says, “At four I was an Arabian wizard. / I could make myself invisible” (Lines 13-14). In his imagination, these were real experiences, because he was limitless.

The third stanza speaks more literally, which serves as a bridge to the metaphors in the fourth and fifth stanzas. These are different from the ones earlier in the poem, because they’re not quite figurative or literal but some ephemeral place in between the two. The boy walks “through the universe” (Line 25), a metaphor for his immediate surroundings—and yet, to him, they may as well be one and the same. There is a touch of irony to this line, as he realizes perhaps for the first time that there may be more beyond those walls after all. The final stanza is composed almost entirely of metaphors, until the last line: “I skin my knees. I bleed” (Line 32), which is possibly the most literal line of the entire piece. The boy thinks, “there was nothing under my skin but light” (Line 29)—again, not quite literal and not quite figurative, but something caught in between the two. He uses “light” (Line 29) because he has no words for the unquantifiable substance of limitless potential that was bound up inside of him. With the final line, he comes to a new awareness of his own physicality and the limitations that come with growing up.