FanStory.com - Ode To My Left Handby LisaMay
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My best friend, to whom I am very attached.
Ode To My Left Hand by LisaMay
    Ode Poem Contest Winner 


Oh, abomination dear to me: my sinister left hand.
Of course I did not choose this -- not something I had planned.
Yet I am judged upon you, with words that mock and slander.
They think 'tis fun to tease me, say I’m a klutz cack-hander.
I might have been, in earlier times, dragged to the ducking stool,
or tied to the stake and set ablaze when prejudice held rule.
I do admit my cat is black, but witchcraft’s not for me --
my right-side brain is busy with paint, peace and poetry.
My leftist leanings, way back then, could’ve got me killed,
but in these days of creative tasks I am seen as skilled.


Oh, abomination dear to me: my sinister left hand.
We are in this world together, to be standing hand-in-hand.
You ‘righties’ are so righteous, your world is safer than ours: 
we ‘lefties’ have to struggle with our highly-developed powers
to observe, adapt, and utilise your poorly-designed devices
that do not consider our needs at all -- we must avoid this crisis.
No longer is it wise to stop left hands from being used,
it only leads to mental stress and learning is confused.
I offer thee my handshake, my much-maligned best friend.
You’re by my side, I’m attached to you, until the very end.
 



Writing Prompt
Write an ode to anything you want as long as it is not about a person or an animal. Comparison can be made to people or animals. It can be funny or serious. Personification allowed. Rhyming or not is up to you. The subject is up to you, please keep it clean. Pictures and author's notes allowed.
Ode Poem
Contest Winner

Author Notes
The Latin word sinistra originally meant "left" but took on meanings of "evil" or "unlucky" by the Classical Latin era, and this double meaning survives in European derivatives of Latin, and in the English word "sinister".

The Latin word dextra originally meant "on the right" and has led to the English words dexterity and dextrous: skill in performing tasks, especially with the hands.

The theory is that people are either left-brained or right-brained, meaning that one side of their brain is dominant. If you're mostly analytical and methodical in your thinking, you're said to be left-brained. If you tend to be more creative or artistic, you're thought to be right-brained.

Beyond being inherently disadvantaged by a right-handed bias in the design of tools, left-handed people have been subjected to deliberate discrimination and discouragement. In certain societies, they may be considered unlucky or even malicious by the right-handed majority. Many languages still contain references to left-handedness to convey awkwardness, dishonesty, stupidity, or other undesirable qualities. Even in relatively advanced societies, left-handed people were historically (and in some cases still are) forced as children to use their right hands for tasks which they would naturally perform with the left, such as eating or writing.

The left hemisphere is detached, rational, acquisitive, conceptual, literal, straight-laced, abstract, verbal, analytic. Subscribes to scientific materialism and tries to narrow things down to a certainty.

The right hemisphere is engaged, empathetic, receptive, intuitive, metaphorical, humorous, particular, musical, holistic. It tries to open things up into possibility.

The right hemisphere primarily lets us be aware of the world, and looks for the connections, or the "between-ness" everywhere, whereas the left allows us to grasp, and, hence, manipulate the world. The left hemisphere's world tends towards fixity, whereas that of the right tends towards flow. The left is not good at understanding the world. Its attention is narrow, its vision myopic, and it can't see how the parts fit together. It is good for only one thing -- manipulating the world. The left hemisphere's values are those of utility and pleasure, whereas the right is concerned with meaning, purpose and happiness.

"While the right hemisphere grounds our experience, the left dissects it. The right hemisphere is at home in our "embodied existence" in art and in religion. The left is at home in designing tools with which to master and understand the world. The left hemisphere treats us and our environment as an assemblage of machines; the right hemisphere treats us as people. The left systematises while the right empathises." --Adam Zeman, Professor of Cognitive and Behavioural Neurology, University of Exeter in "A Brain of Two Halves".

     

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