[stylist] The Shortest Short Story

[Jackie Williams]

Vejas,
What a wonderful discussion. Many in my poetry class oppose the idea that a
poet should explain what her or his poem meant. They prefer that the reader
make it of what they will.
I prefer a little more direction if a poem is truly murky and not accessible
to me.
This ad led me to probably the most usual circumstance, such as the death of
a baby. The discussion was really illuminating opening so many other
possibilities. It has wedged my mind to be a bit more open. 
I also want to thank you for your many thoughts, questions, and prompts that
you have shared with this community of writers. I am inspired by your
enthusiasm. 
Jackie Lee

Time is the school in which we learn.
Time is the fire in which we burn.
Delmore Schwartz	 


-----Original Message-----
From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Vejas
Vasiliauskas via stylist
Sent: Thursday, August 31, 2017 4:07 PM
To: stylist at nfbnet.org
Cc: Vejas Vasiliauskas
Subject: [stylist] The Shortest Short Story

Hi All,
As many of you may know, the shortest short story ever was composed by
Ernest Hemingway. It was only 6 words. These words were "for sale, baby
shoes, never worn." In my English class today, we spent about 20 minutes
discussing it.
Before, I had kind of  drawn the conclusion that a woman had brought baby
shoes, then had either a miscarriage or stillbirth and decided she needed to
sell the shoes. This was the first possibility but then we discussed many
other possible scenarios:
The family might have had good money, but had to sell their shoes because
they couldn't bear them being there, because it would remind them of the
loss.
The family could have had lots of money, and might have had too many shoes.
They could have simply just brought a size that was too big/small.
Someone even suggested that maybe during the 1950's, which was around the
time this was written, and abortions were still taboo, it could have been a
pair of shoes gifted to a family who were going to abort their baby.
Our class also discussed why this is considered a short story, since the
usual character development, setting, and plot aren't there. We came to the
conclusion that Hemingway might have wanted us to draw conclusions for
ourselves. We also decided that the main character  had to be someone who
could write, since they wrote the advertisement, and that it would be most
likely taking place in a country like the US or UK, and not in a country
such as China where they wouldn't be so open about having a baby.
I just found this  to be an extremely interesting discussion in my class.
Has anyone else had different conclusions or discussed it differently?
Vejas 
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