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I Was a Child Poet. And a Bad One.

2012-11-13 · letter vlog · John · 3:42 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Personal life (also: Books & writing) · mode: Personal update · tags: self promotion

John celebrates Amazon naming The Fault in Our Stars one of 2012's ten best books, shares embarrassing finds from an organizational binge (report cards, a childhood world-peace poem), and explains he is donating his manuscripts to the de Grummond Collection.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Greeting; Amazon names The Fault in Our Stars one of the ten best books of 2012

  • ★★★ John announces that Amazon.com named The Fault in Our Stars one of the ten best books of 2012 overall, not just for teenagers, right behind Dave Eggers and ahead of Junot Díaz. — 00:00:05 · Amazon, The Fault in Our Stars

00:00:23 — Shirt change; John and the Yeti's organizational binge turns up Brotherhood 2.0 memorabilia, John's early work, EcoGeek cards, fan books and his school stories

  • ★★ Over the last few days John and the Yeti have been on an organizational binge, turning up things he hadn't seen in years, like a Venn diagram from Brotherhood 2.0. — 00:00:26 · Sarah Urist Green, Brotherhood 2.0
  • ★ Among the finds: his early work 'The Best New Years Resolution Ever: Happy New Year Streamers' and misprinted EcoGeek business cards from January 2007. — 00:00:34 · EcoGeek
  • ★ He also found books other people wrote, including 'Q and the Three Tubs of Vaseline', which only makes sense if you've read Paper Towns, and Debby Kitto's 'Pants Power and his Power Pants'. — 00:00:42 · Paper Towns
  • ★★ John found high-school literary journals with his stories, in two of which the main character dies and in one the grandfather dies, plus a childhood 'Book About Me and My Fun Times'. (playful) — 00:00:53

00:01:10 — John's report cards, and an all-A report card that turns out to be Hank's

  • ★★ John's report cards, back to elementary school, all say much the same: great potential as an English student, underachievement, and a slide in effort. (playful) — 00:01:10

00:01:48 — John reads his childhood 'Bio-Poem' about world peace and riffs on it as a boxer-style nickname

  • ★★ John reads his childhood 'Bio-Poem' from his 'book of peaceful and amusing poems', written at about ten (fourth grade, when he had a girlfriend); it centres on world peace. (playful) — 00:01:48

00:03:06 — Why: John is donating his drafts and editorial correspondence to the de Grummond Collection at the University of Southern Mississippi; botched sign-off

  • ★★★ John is donating all the drafts of his books, with his correspondence with editor Julie Strauss-Gabel, to the de Grummond children's library at the University of Southern Mississippi, to be archived forever. — 00:03:06 · Julie Strauss-Gabel
  • ★★ John is greatly honored and psyched to share a room with manuscripts like A Wrinkle in Time and Peter Rabbit. — 00:03:15
  • ★ The de Grummond collection holds, John says, thousands of famous manuscripts. (hedged) — 00:03:25

In the description and comments

  • ★★ John explains that the donation means interested researchers can visit the de Grummond Collection to look through dozens of drafts of each of his novels and read his editorial correspondence with Julie; he calls the collection an amazing resource and feels very lucky to be part of it. — video description · Julie Strauss-Gabel

Humor (significant)

  • As a novelist, John says, he believes in the power of the precisely chosen word. — 00:00:16

    “So all I can say about this news is SMURGAPURG.”

  • A report card praises John's empathy for people in the past but says 'her analyzing' needs work. — 00:01:29

    “Well, I think your pronoun use has room for improvement.”

  • Among John's mediocre report cards he finds an all-A third-grade card and gets excited. — 00:01:45

    “yeah, it's Hank Green's report card! Dangit!”

  • John suspects the poem's first and last lines frame a boxer-style nickname. — 00:02:53

    “I think I might've wanted to be known as John "Nice-Peaceful-Visionary-Joyous-Lover-Of-Peace-Hope-And”

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: de Grummond Children's Literature Collection · The Fault in Our Stars

Also: People: Dave Eggers · Julie Strauss-Gabel · Junot Díaz · Sarah Urist Green · Sonny Liston

Projects: Brotherhood 2.0 · EcoGeek

Works: A Wrinkle in Time · Bio-Poem · Paper Towns · The Best New Years Resolution Ever: Happy New Year Streamers · The Tale of Peter Rabbit

Organizations: Amazon · University of Southern Mississippi

Places: Germany

Only in the description or credits: Debbie Kitto

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