“The Lesson” by Steve Henn

Oftentimes, events from when people are younger contribute to their character later on in their lives. In “The Lesson,” Steve Henn portrays how a childhood experience taught him a greater lesson that followed him into adulthood. 

Many kids experience what seems to be the end of the world when something goes wrong. The author’s feeling of embarrassment taught him the lesson that “nothing ever happens for a reason” which contradicts the common thought that everything happens for a reason. Henn’s experience included a bird pooping on his head followed by falling off his bike due to the front wheel detaching led to his sister laughing in his face when he came back home. This led to his arm and long hair getting ruffled up which added frustration to the situation. The author uses cacophonous diction and swear words to express his frustration and passion about crashing his bike. These nasty-sounding words add emphasis to the situation and further allow the reader to envision how the author must have felt as a child. The cacophonous words in “I tumbled, scraped, fell” literally add insult to injury when the author describes what happened immediately after the bike’s front wheel detached from it. This line is also significant because it shows he had no other option but to go home because he needed to aid these injuries. This led to Henn’s embarrassment from seeing his sister because the door was locked and she had to let him in. Henn uses the repetition of “she laughed, she laughed, and laughed” to show how ridiculous he must have looked at the moment. Henn and his sister’s relationship can also be inferred here as her initial reaction to her brother being hurt was to laugh and antagonize him instead of offering help to make him feel better. This highlights how the author’s word choice helps the reader understand how this small, unfortunate event contributes to his life on a larger scale.

Many believe that everything happens for a reason, however, Steve Henn states, “Nothing ever happens for a reason.” This final statement in the poem can be interpreted in many different ways. This final line could be seen as sarcasm because this event led to a lesson so great in his life that he decided to write a poem about it. Therefore, crashing his BMX bike was really meant to happen for him because it led him to be more responsible and grow as a person. Another way this can be interpreted is in a literal sense where he does not understand why events like these have to occur in one’s life. This could be written to contribute to his frustration shown from when he was a kid and how it led to his lesson to never risk his health on impulsive actions. No matter which way this final sentence is interpreted, it serves as the most meaningful line in the poem. This is because it is the actual lesson that Henn learned and is the message the author is trying to send or the theme of the poem. The reader can infer Steve Henn is a very straightforward person because of the way he describes how he fell from his bike. He clearly describes the setting as a midsummer day on a brightly lit sidewalk which leads to why falling off his bike made him seem even more clumsy. This also describes how it would be possible for a bird to poop on his head as it is common for birds to be out in the middle of a summer day. All of these factors lead to describing the type of person Henn is because he is willing to write about an embarrassing experience of his.