While exploring the David Foster Wallace archive, Justine Tal Goldberg unearthed a poem most likely written as a grade school assignment.
According to The Guardian, Goldberg was researching for an article when she found a thick folder labeled “very early DFW.” It also contained illustrated short stories, school reading lists and essays on baseball with smiley faces scribbled on the margins.
The article offers these lines from the adolescent Wallace (pictured, via) poem: “My mother works so hard / so hard and for bread. She needs some lard. / She bakes the bread. And makes / the bed. And when she’s / threw she feels she’s dayd.” What do you think? (via Publisher’s Weekly)