60 pages • 2 hours read
Love That Dog
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Pages 22-41Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Pages 22-41 Summary
Jack theorizes that poems are just words that create mental pictures—and drawing on his own experience—thinks that the famous poets simply believed their work were true poems after seeing them printed on nice paper. The other students begin to notice Jack’s work, though he chooses to remain anonymous.
Jack writes a poem about the first time he met Sky, his yellow dog. Jack’s father surprised him with a trip to the animal shelter, the two adopting Sky by the end of it. The poem bluntly concludes that the other dogs will “get killed dead” if people don’t adopt them (27). Jack allows Miss Stretchberry to publish the poem but tells her to omit the sad ending. He titles the poem “You Come Too,” a name derived from Frost’s “The Pasture”—the poem Jack doesn’t like.
Jack later reads “Street Music” by Arnold Adoff and applies the poem’s musical sounds to a poem about his neighborhood. He writes about kids playing in the street and how the older ones call out “Car!” He also describes the “Caution! Children at play!” signs and how cars don’t follow said warnings at times (33).
Inspired by S. C. Rigg’s poem “The Apple,” Jack creates a concrete poem (one physically modeled after the poem’s subject). He takes credit for this one and his classmates compliment his creativity. Jack asks Miss Stretchberry to encourage another anonymous poet—one who created an admirable concrete poem about a tree—to publish their name as well.
Pages 22-41 Analysis
Jack becomes more open-minded about poems he initially disliked. He rejected Frost’s “The Pasture” out of a lack of understanding; however, the title of Jack’s poem about the day he met Sky references a line from “The Pasture.” The line “You come too” (25) also finds its way into the poem itself. Frost’s message was lost on Jack, but elements of it still left an impression on his writing. Good poetry, even if enigmatic, sticks with readers—something Jack notices in several poems he initially criticized.
Jack also learns how flexible poems can be. While prose adheres to grammar, spelling, and specific punctuation, Miss Stretchberry’s class reads poetry that plays with words and sounds. Inspired by S. C. Rigg’s “The Apple,” a concrete poem filled with apple-themed adjectives and nouns, Jack writes a similar poem about a dog. The poem’s structure not only outlines a recognizable dog, but the letter arrangement within words creates an effect that may require more than one read. Jack writes the word “head” twice, one above the other, with a large space after the “e” to create the illusion of a face: “he ad” (37); the second “head” is used to depict other features. Jack’s playfulness shows that his poetry-writing experience centers around exploration and innovation.
Jack’s name first appears in-text, within the story, when he finally chooses to publish under his name. Readers know Jack’s name from the book’s first entry—but story-wise, he remains anonymous until he links himself to his latest poem. With this poem, Jack takes ownership as a creator, a position that also calls for vulnerability as his feelings and thoughts become accessible to his classmates. Despite his initial embarrassment, his classmates respond positively. Due to the book’s first-person point of view, readers can’t perceive events outside of Jack’s own experiences. The other students’ responses help readers understand Jack from a new point of view and demonstrate his impact on the class.
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