I am a poet. I have identified as such for about fifteen years, give or take a year or two. On July 1, 1999, I added the title of “mother� to my list of credentials. I thought that these two titles, mama and poet, could go together pretty easily. I had imagined that motherhood would fuel my poetry much like my warm breast milk would fuel my son, motherhood providing plenty of sustenance for creativity like a breast easily whipped out for suckling.
And well, much like my labor and delivery, things haven’t quite turned out as I expected. For various reasons, I regrettably only breast fed my son for the first six weeks. And, at least thus far, my manic writing of maternally influenced poetry has managed to elude success as well.
I had big plans when I was pregnant. As soon as the shock from the confirmation that I was officially “with child� settled down a bit, I started contemplating how my poetry, along with my life as I had known it, would change. Spurred and inspired by hormone changes, mood swings, and a ballooning belly, I figured that I would be able to scribble out at least a few poems a day. Multiply that by 34 weeks (since the first six weeks were pretty much shot by the time I realized I really was pregnant), and I would have approximately 714 poems by the time I gave birth! I could have a book of poems, written just for my son, to present to him someday when he was old enough to appreciate my literary labor of love. Instead of a pregnancy journal, I would have pages of poetry, my body changes documented in similes, my dreams and fears in metaphors. This, along with the baby book I had planned to hand make and the birth announcement I would cross-stitch. All this creativity would surely be busting out of me!
But instead, I was struck with a classic case of writer’s block. If I wasn’t working overtime as an emergency room nurse to try to save some money, I was too preoccupied with trying to figure out how I was going to merge my life with my boyfriend’s (who I knew for three months before I became pregnant) to write poems. And when I wasn’t doing that, I was too busy spooning Haagen Daaz Chocolate Chocolate Chip ice cream into my mouth by the pint. Or I was ruminating over my swollen ankles and lack of air conditioning in my sweltering apartment. Poems would have to wait. I had other, more pressing issues to worry about. Besides, I had figured, after I got through the whole birth thing, I could write poems during the baby’s naptime.
During those nine long months, I did spit out a few poems here and there. My poems focused on the waiting and the kicks in my belly, but the quantity was pathetically short of my original idea. I kept putting off writing. It turns out that I did not even get out a poem for each month of being pregnant. My poetic fetus was certainly a candidate for the neonatal intensive care unit, premature and in need of artificial support to be able to survive.
Soon after the birth of my son, I assumed that I would then obviously be motivated to write, spurred on by the wonderment of the little person I had created. And of course, I really was amazed at everything he did. I was overwhelmed with the ferocity of love I felt for him. I felt like I had known him all my life and my new role as a mother felt instinctual and good.
It left me speechless. Literally. I squeaked out perhaps two poems that first year. And they really weren’t all that good.
Granted, my son’s antics and the primal emotions I have experienced since becoming a mother have given me plenty of material to write about. No doubt about that. The trick has been trying to be able to lunge for a writing tool and something to write on when the moment hits. Usually I am in the middle of shooing my son away from some inappropriate thing to play with or wishing I could have a few seconds of peace and quiet when some word pops into my head that I think I could expand upon to create a new poem. And more often than not, that moment of poetic epiphany has to wait. I have lost more poems to some elusive wrinkle in my brain due to the demands of said child. And then, when I actually do get a chance to sit and write, I am stumped. Nothing comes out right. My pages are full of scratched over words and half started ideas. In the past, when this would happen, I would light a candle, put on some Ella Fitzgerald and open a bottle of wine to get things flowing. Of course, at this point, gone are the days of mulling over a couple glasses of Chianti and then trying again to spew out genius.
One of my first literary motherhood tricks I stumbled upon happened to present itself when my son was old enough to sit in a highchair next to me at the dining room table where we ate. This table also was my computer station at that time and I often stole moments of internet surfing while my son played with soggy, gnawed-on graham crackers or smooshed banana pieces. I soon thought to try to take that opportunity to type out some poems on the computer, in between checking emails and networking for sanity with other mamas. One of my favorite poems that I titled “The Cheerio Poem� was created in such a moment, some early morning where I typed about us having “poetry for breakfast.�
Meal time at this stage of the game leaves no time for an affair with the keyboard. I decided I must be a good role model for proper table manners since monkey-see, monkey-do logically decided if I was to try to sit in front of a computer screen while we eat than he would like to sit in front of a television screen. During the other, non-meal times that I have tried to sneak in some creative computer time, I get caught in a matter of minutes by the three foot attention keeper. He tolerates me telling him to “hold on a second,� only two times or so before he tells me rather petulantly to get off the computer as he stands there with his hands on his hips. Since my son is such an active participant in daily life, he obviously expects me to participate with him. And I want to honor that expectation as much as I am able to do so, as these days will, soon enough, be fond memories. But sometimes I just really want to sit on my ass and write.
The next strategy I tried was to carry a little spiral notepad in my purse/baby bag for easy access in the event that if I had a moment of quiet, I could write something down, anytime, anywhere. As long as it was written down, I could worry about getting it onto the computer for safer keeping later. I would keep a pen jammed down into the spirals so I would not waste precious time digging around for some ink. But alas, that pad and pen to often disappeared, having been accosted for toddler scribbles and miniature Crayola masterpieces. Or else the notepad was taken out of my bag all together to make room for some Ziploc baggie of animal crackers or what seems like a few thousand little green army men. Besides, what is this thing called “quiet?� All in all, this strategy did not last very long. Two months, max.
For awhile, it seemed that I had discovered that my best time to write was during bouts of insomnia or rare mornings when I awaken before my son. Moments of parenting have occasionally been coaxed out onto paper at these times and if I have no distractions, I am usually off and running with it. If I can’t seem to actually write, I just take the down time to read other poetry to get inspired and “in the mood.� Unfortunately, at least when it comes to the morning moments, by the time I am really feeling ready to get creative; the boy is awake and asking for some breakfast. And pretty often, during the midnight writing hours, he seems to have some internal alarm that goes off to tell him that Mommy is awake, therefore he must be too.
Just over four years into the official parenting gig, I have now set a more attainable goal for myself in terms of documenting my son’s childhood in poems. If nothing else, I will write a poem about him on each birthday, give or take a few days. I got this idea around his third birthday. I was pondering how my son was “not a baby anymore� when it struck me to write a poem about it. Each July, as the anniversary of his birth looms over me and I am automatically awed at “how time flies,� I will capture that moment of his life and what he is doing at that time under titles such as “Turning Ten� and “Thoughts on Eleven.� My thinking is that one day, I will perhaps self publish a small chapbook of the poems I have written about him. On some milestone birthday, like eighteen or twenty one, I will give it to him. Or maybe I will wait until he has his own children (if he does). I figure that I can probably get out at least one poem a year. Anymore than that and I can say I have exceeded my goal! The main thing that I have tried to remember is to not stress out about it anymore. The poems come when they want. Sometimes I may write a few a day for a week or so, and then I cannot write any for months. I just try to be mindful of the moment with my son and trust that my writing will reflect that mindfulness when the time is right.
It really amazes me to no end when I sit back and think about how much my poetry has changed, in both quantity and quality, since becoming a mother. I see the progression of my dismal, teenage punk rock/angst poetry merge into the poetry of my early twenties and my perceived lost loves, times of passionate, tumultuous sex, and the bouts of deadening depression. And then, entering the latter half of my twenties, there is this little person introduced into my life that I have been writing about.
These days, when I daydream about what the future may hold for me and my son, one thing I envision is taking him to poetry readings. I might even be sitting up in front of everyone sipping their cappuccinos and reading my poems about my little munchkin while they give knowing smiles his way. I imagine me lying lazily in a hammock in my back yard, while my son lies at the other end and proceeds to read me poems that he has written. I hope that poetry will be one of our “bonding� activities.
I am also thinking that it is inevitable that my son will get to the age when he will want nothing to do with me because he will think I am a completely unhip and tattooed dork of a mother. I see myself writing poems to occupy my time while I try to not obsess that something bad has happened to my baby out in the big mean world when he is late coming home. Maybe I will reminisce over my old poems of his babyhood, drink a couple glasses of red wine, and think of how bittersweet motherhood is. Of course, I am hoping that one day he will think it is pretty damn cool that I snatched moments of his younger days and immortalized them into poetry when I got the chance. And maybe, if I am really lucky, having taken up is own poetic endeavors, he will, in turn, document his thoughts about his aging mother and her artistic influence that so profoundly affected his life. It could happen….