The poem "Zimmer in Grade School" appears to be expressing a person's viewpoint of his self-image. He is talking about his thoughts on how he viewed himself and the feelings how others viewed him in grade school. It seemed that no matter what he did he was always looked down on. No matter how much he would hide behind who he truly was, he would still be known as Zimmer, the child who is always outside of the principles office and the one with the messy papers that could not count, spell or read. "If I peed my pants in class the puddle was always quickly evident". To me that statement means that no matter what he did someone always pointed out the bad in him. His worst mistake always resulted with him having to face the blackboard. To Zimmer, Jesus and all the saints were frowning on his actions.
He expressed the thoughts that everyone was against him. His parent's wrang their loving hands. So even though they loved him, they couldn't deal with his ways either. He continued to wonder, if he was such a failure why does he even exist? He talks about his knuckles being swollen from combat, and the old nun's ruler. It seems like he was writing about the abuse he put up with and the abuse he dealt with from others. Everyone was looking down on him through his eyes. Through all his experiences he feared everything. He feared learning, his schoolmates, and God himself.
This poem is personal, and reminds me of my own thoughts from time to time. It is often how I have viewed my own self image. I felt I was never good enough or that everyone looked down on me, making me feel that I was not smart enough or could not do anything right. I feel how I was treated may have influenced my reflections about myself. However, people were there to help me out, so I eventually grew out of that state of mind. Zimmer may not view his self image now as he did in the past, but he wanted to write about it and express how he was treated poorly by his schoolmates and by