Lost Children: "Biography of an Armenian Schoolgirl" & "For Mohammed On The Mountain"

These two poems were of particular interest to me because they both featured children that are wise beyond their years. In the first poem, a young school girl is trying to make sense of the world around her and her culture. She does not understand why she is being taught certain subjects in school and specifically raises questions about marriage when she says “How will I sleep with him, I who have never slept away from my mother?” (11). The girl has a wonderful imagination and pictures a different life for herself but is never able to achieve it because she is suppressed due to her culture which is seen as she writes on her tablet. “There is something else we were born for. I almost remember it. While I write, a ghost writes on the same tablet, achieves a different sum” (13). Her culture will always have an impact on how she acts, presents herself, and thinks.

The second poem is similar but different in a few specific ways. It features a young boy whom also has a lot of questions in regard to his culture, specifically his religion. He is continually questioning his father about Mohammad and asks such questions as “But why did he go to the mountain? What happened to him?” (25). The boy also starts to question his faith when things are not going well with little sign of improvement. He asks Mohammad, “Are you angry with us? Do you think my father forgot you?” (27).  At the end of the poem, we learn that despite having so many questions and possible doubt about his religion and culture, the boy still continues to believe. He even wishes to one day to be united with his friends on the mountain with Mohammad (29).

While the boy in this poem questions his religion, the girl in the first poem questions her education and her roles as a woman. This is what makes the two poems so different and interesting. Due to the different gender roles in the cultures, the boy and the young girl concern themselves with two different aspects of their culture. In this way they are lost and both are trying to figure out where they stand and what their place in this world is going to be. Since they are of different genders, their answers to these questions will be different. They may never find the answers they are looking for but they both seem rather determined to keep searching.