Green eggs and ham and a man and a blue guitar and a pencil

Here are the final lines of Dr. Seuss' Green Eggs and Ham:

You do not like them.

SO you say.

Try them! Try them!

And you may.

Try them and you may I say.


Sam!

If you will let me be,

I will try them.

You will see.


Say!

I like green eggs and ham!

I do!! I like them, Sam-I-am!

And I would eat them in a boat!

And I would eat them with a goat...

And I will eat them in the rain.

And in the dark. And on a train.

And in a car. And in a tree.

They are so good so good you see!


So I will eat them in a box.

And I will eat them with a fox.

And I will eat them in a house.

And I will eat them with a mouse.

And I will eat them here and there.

Say! I will eat them ANYWHERE!


I do so like

green eggs and ham!

Thank you!

Thank you,

Sam-I-am

And this is a bit of what James read to us on Friday:

 These are the people lit up in the greenery who accost the shearsman with his Blue guitar telling him in essence that things are green in their nature: effectively showing their ignorance from being in youth. We should say that they are green behind the gills off of their own self-centeredness. They have yet to have ever truly Changed, the Capitol C, that metamorphic change wherein you become in-tuned to that "something beyond us" and realize that you are no longer that old green self. We often refer to our past selves as our younger selves, and in a parallel view we often try to stay away from blue thoughts or so the saying goes. And this debilitating, this offsetting context, this discourse which has been formed by a very "green" rhetoric is something the Blue guitarist sings about in the end.

It seems as though James us suggesting we reject the green world, though I could be wrong. However, if that is the case, Seuss' poem takes on a new light when gazed upon in light of The Man with the Blue Guitar. 

You see, it seems as though "green" asks us to look upon the world as we want to see it, rather than see it as it truly is. They are content to look at a picture of a pen rather than search out the real thing. They do not see Gertrude Stein as she truly is, they simply see her as she appears. 

If this is the case, the character who repeatedly rejects green eggs and ham is in the right. He refuses to see the world as he wants to see it, and instead demands that he be allowed to see a world opened up to him without being told, "This is how the world is." 

However, as we have read above, he takes the green eggs and ham. He eats them and, with that, chooses to see the world in a very simple way, a very green way, to see things as they seem. The people in Stevens' poem beg, "play, you must, A tune beyond us, yet ourselves, A tune upon the blue guitar, Of things exactly as they are." Yet these people cannot see things as they are, for they are green. They are limited, they are unchanged, and they are, as James says, self centered. 

And when Green Eggs and Ham was brought up in class I realized that children are being told, though they probably will never assume it, that they must look at the world as it seems, not as it is. Because, as Clear Waters tells us, a pencil is not just a pencil. It is poetry and poison and chewing and a tattoo. It is much more. A child enters this world full of brilliance and creativity and imagination, but at some point they are asked if they would like some green eggs and ham. And because they look upon Dr. Seuss and read, "I do so like green eggs and ham! Thank you, thank you Sam-I-am", they accept the green world. 

And then we might ask, "Who is Sam-I-am?" 

And I cannot help but think of our own Uncle Sam, 

And a government of the people, a government that "I am". 

And then I begin to sound like a conspiracy theorist. 

So for now, make of that what you will, 

As for me, and for others, and for my will,

I do not like green eggs and ham,

And I will not eat them, Sam-I am.

A blue guitar is much more suitable than green eggs and ham,

And I will play blue melodies while I reject them, and I will be

For Cam-I-am.