Judith Viorst is an American author, psychoanalysis researcher, newspaper journalist and is best known for her works related to children literature. Most of her works are presented as narrations done by children and views from their point of view.
In protest of the Vietnam War, Viorst signed the Writers and Editors War tax protest, vowing to refuse to tax payments. After writing for more than two decades for children and adults, she turned to studies of Freudian psychology and later on became a research graduate.
She has received the Foremother Award for Lifetime Achievement from the National Research Centre for Women and Families in 2011. She is also a newspaper columnist and writes for The New York Times frequently and the Washington Post also.
This poem, “if I were in Charge of the world” is sweet poem written from the angle of a small child. The small little things that annoy him and how he wished that if he was in charge of the world, how he could make the changes as per his choice.
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In the first stanza of the poem, it describes that the child wishes that if he were in charge of the world, he would cancel the oatmeal and the Monday mornings and the consultation with Sara Steinberg. Here, the poet says that the little child is not happy having oatmeal’s and when it comes to Monday mornings, the daily school routine is what is bothering him and as a series visiting or even knowing great psychologist as Sara Steinberg is not at all making him happy, but instead just annoys him.
The second stanza gives us an idea, how the child adores the nights and would like to have brighter lights at nights. The child would like to have more healthy hamsters, which the kid like the most and he would reduce the height of the basketball basket in such a manner that he could play with ease not jump so high and take the effort.
In the third stanza, the poet really shows how a child feels when he is being asked to clean and behave kindly to his young ones and that is why from the child’s point of view, if he was the controller of the world, then no one would ask him to clean, sleep at the right time and not to bother his little sister. He would just be free to do what he desires, rather than being instructed what to do.
And finally, the poet describes that the child would just make things the vice-versa of what it is now like considering a chocolate sundae the most healthy food and all action and violence movies good, as that inspires him, and no strict guidelines would he have to follow like brushing and flushing and still he would be on top of all.
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A wonderful and simple way the poem is laid from a child’s perspective and said in the most innocent way of his desires and how frustrated he feels from the present world that he is in now.