Neverland Origins (A Poem)

By Joyce Jacobo

[Author’s Note: I’ve always found the history behind how J.M. Barrie came to create Peter Pan incredible.]

James M. Barrie had novelistic aspirations

  when he penned “Little White Bird”

  a serious novel meant for adults

But included among the solemnness

   were miniature chapters

   told as bedtime stories

   from a parent to his children

These tales between

   the fabric of the larger novel

   concerned a singular babe

   who flew out his nursery window

For in the reality of the story

    all children were once birds

    confined to nurseries

     to make them human

The babe managed to escape

     he flew off to an island

     at the center of Kensington Gardens

     where fairies entertained him

      alongside a talkative crow

He became stranded there on that island

      but turned into a ruler among the fairies

         the king of his own Neverland

         and he remained forever young

While “Little White Bird” met with success

        it was the tales of the babe

        that gained far more popularity

        so Barrie gathered them together

        into a storybook on their own

This early version of a babe

        never to grow up

        gave rise to one

        at the second star to the right

A child from Neverland named Peter Pan

       in many ways different than the babe

       Barrie had penned years before

       yet without a single doubt

       the one readers would know the best

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