Let Me Build You a Statue

These Delirious Hem pieces are amazing and thought provoking. I could write a response to each and every one of them if time was no object.

So what to add? How about a confession I'm not supposed to make. When I was pregnant, I desperately wanted a boy and when I found out I was having a boy, I cried with joy.

What the hell? What's my problem with girls? Do I think boys are better, more valuable? Of course not. Would I have loved a daughter any less? I seriously doubt it. I grew up in a house where the boy was openly given preferential treatment over the girls. Not only was there no one on either side of the family who would ever call themselves a feminist, the boys and men definitely were more valuable and better respected. I am familiar with how that stings a girl growing up.

If I had a daughter, I likely would never mention such a preference for concern that she'd misconstrue it to mean that I didn't want her.

But I did have a preference. There are some personal, complicated reasons, but also there is a philosophical one. I want to try to contribute to society a man who is thoughtful, introspective and considerate. Somebody who doesn't view himself as the center, the norm, the standard. A man who can both respect and not take advantage of the women of his generation. As feminists and mothers in general, I believe we spend a lot of time making up for what current society lacks and preparing our daughters to handle that. I think this is incredibly important and must continue. But I think some of us overlook how we need to prepare our sons. It's easy to do, society offers so many more advantages to our sons. But society fails them on many other levels. Raising our sons not to grow up to become the "hey wanna fuck" types might be a start, but it's hardly enough. We need to change how we raise both girls and boys.

I know a lot of poet-moms and poet-dads. I am rather shocked by the disconnect between the two. In general. I'm speaking generally, I know of a number of exceptions. I'm not discussing the exceptions in this post. I'm discussing a trend.

For instance, many of the poet-dads brag about "changing a lot of diapers" or staying home a day or two a week to watch their children. Yes, that's great. Yes, it undoubtedly is helpful to the mother. Yes, that's likely a big step forward from what their fathers did. But these guys see themselves as heros almost, like what their doing is above and beyond the expectation. It doesn't occur to them that 30% of diaper changing and 20% of childcare is closer to being described as supplemental.

I wouldn't even mind this imbalance if there was at least an better awareness of it. A poet-dad admitting that his wife does the bulk of the child rearing which allows him to write more and travel, well that's a totally different situation. That's awareness and honesty. He's not inflating himself or diminishing her.

Can you imagine a poet-mom bragging that she changes a lot of diapers? Your response would be, um, yeah, that's part of raising a baby. If I bragged about staying home to watch my child, you'd stare and scratch your head. Yes, you're a mother, you don't leave your young child alone to fend for himself. How many times have I heard a poet-dad say he's "babysitting" his own children? How can one babysit his own child? Aren't poets supposedly be conscious of their word choices? How many poet-dads of young children go away to writing colonies for a month at a time without a second thought? It's kind of amazing. I go away for three nights and am constantly reminded, often by complete strangers, how lucky (and of course, selfish I am) to leave my son with his own father.

Chris has yet to eat Gideon, but perhaps he's just waiting for him to plump up some.

I often ask myself how did these otherwise intelligent, thoughtful, generally decent poet-dads become this way? I'm quite fond of many of them, consider many my friends. I'm not saying their not good fathers. They certainly are.

But I don't want my son to grow up with their approaches, assumptions and perceptions. I don't want him to grow up and be like them.

Has writing this lost me the esteem or friendship of a poet-dad? I hope not. It's not my intention.

I think many of these poets-dads had hardworking, intelligent, loving mothers who tried to do as much as they could. I don't think their mothers made a big deal about how much work and sacrifice they were doing. So these boys grew into men who didn't give it much thought. That's just what women did. These poet-dads love women. They recognize their talents. They want to be more involved parents than their own fathers. In many cases they are. In theory they believe in equality, fairness and somehow convince themselves they're living it. They don't understand where the poet-mom's frustration and anger stems from. They don't see the situation as a shared problem. They are oblivious to how they contribute to it. They're unaware at how insensitive, selfish and borderline cruel this stance can be. Any women who points that out to them is UNBALANCED or UNWELL. It's not the situation that is unbalanced or sickly, it's her.

Or maybe she's just JEALOUS.

Maybe she is jealous?

The poet-mom is expected to toil in silence. Aren't all mothers? Why should she be different? No whining about difficulty, buck up! Nobody MADE you become a mom-poet. You choose it.

Love it or leave it!

Poet-moms are held to a higher standard. Expected to perform superhero feats minus the superhero status. Expected to write, publish, critique, plus do the bulk of child rearing and family managing. Poet-moms are also blamed for all these number troubles in literary journals. If women were writing poems instead of having babies, we'd publish them!

I want to blame poet-dads for something.

Rabies. Poet-dads are responsible for rabies. And scabies. And shingles. Unfair? Shut up. You made the choice to become a poet-dad, it's time you carried some of this suck it up weight.


I also bite my tongue when I hear poet-moms discuss all the work at home they're doing, basically waiting on their sons and husbands. Cooking the majority of the meals, doing the majority of the cleaning and all the other household responsibilities added on to their writing, projects and jobs. I have sympathy for their situations, but I want to say why aren't you making these boys and men participate more? Why aren't you requiring it? You're not doing them any favors. They're gonna grow up like our generation and expect the women to do everything and not even be conscious of the imbalance. I kind of think this next generation of women we're raising are going to be much less forgiving and understanding than we are. Because as feminists, we're raising them not to be so forgiving and understanding of inequality and double-standards. Not as partners, not as colleagues and not as friends.

For goodness sake, let's at least try to prepare our sons for this next wave of dauntless daughters. Let's give them the 21st skillz to pay the 21st century billz. Let's not write them off as doomed to be oblivious. For everyone's sake.

What I'm trying to do (and to find out if I'm successful, come back in 20 or 30 years), is raise my son to have a higher level of awareness than what I see in a number of my man poet peers. To not feel entitled (cause the world will be a very cruel place for him if he does think this way). I don't want him to perceive that 20 or 30% is somehow equal or will just have to do. I want him to be aware of imbalance and appreciate differences. Not only recognize talent and acknowledge hard work of women, but also not be an opportunist taking advantage of that talent and hard work for his own benefit.

This is a task I'm still trying to figure out. It's a learn-as-you-go thing.

As a mother, I consider this my calling. I feel that as feminist [poet] I'm supposed to be a mother of a son.

Book Tracking

One of my summer projects (distractions from pressing work) is to catalogue all of my books on Goodreads. I love Goodreads. It's a thousand times more interesting and valuable than Facebook. Granted the star ranking system is sort of sketchy, but seeing what people are reading and liking and not-liking is fascinating. Until recently, the majority of the books I added were either recent reads (last three years) or memorable books.

But what about all the rest?

I catalogued one shelf this afternoon (bottom shelf, single author collections, Z through part of S). Some of the books I remember reading, but don't remember much or anything about them. It wouldn't be appropriate to give them any kind of ranking. There are books that I remember having an opinion on, but I'm not so sure my opinion would be the same now. No rankings for those either. Then there are books that I don't even remember reading. In some cases, maybe I didn't or maybe I quit early into the book. Who knows. Some books I don't recognize and wonder if they were put there by goblins. I blame/thank the magic ring!

So I'm curious to what's in these books my shelves claim I read. Maybe another summer project? But I own over 100 books on my to-read pile (128 according to Goodreads) that I'm quite positive I haven't read, ever.

Oh this Fool's Journey is a time consuming one. I'm gonna be a dumdum for a long time.

Blanker

While it's sometimes considered cliche, my thinking is a little closer to this. That's in line with the concept of Fool that I'm writing about here.

The idea of Fool that I'm drawn to is "the newly incarnated soul, a blank slate free of the imprints it is soon to receive from the society of men." This is supposedly what children arrive as -- although anyone who's been around a young child having a nightmare, knows that's not truly the case. We don't come with a purely blank slate, there's DNA, collective consciousness, past life remnants (if you believe in that stuff).

It's a blanker slate. No one can remain in such a state, or at least we're not supposed to. It would be deadly to remain Fool/child for an extended period of time. Eventually chasing the ball into the lion's mouth with end with your death.

But it's not a bad place to try to get to every once in a while. Especially for poets.

What I want to attain is not anti-experience or ignorance, but to restart from a less tainted (informed) place, a blanker place and regather experience, which hopefully would be in new, more enlightening way. I'm looking for the Fool's Journey.

Getting to the blanker place is the challenge. Forgetting what one knows is not easy -- even with a magic ring.

Today Gideon and I pondered how his toy car's roof sunk in.

I proposed: Maybe an elephant sat on it?

Gideon proposed: Maybe while we were asleep the stars used their imagination and smashed it with a hammer?


Clearly I have a ways to go.

Children of Men Poets

As I waited for Gideon to finish with speech therapy, I read the first three essays by Anne Boyer, Brandi Homan and Mary Biddinger in Delirious Hem's latest forum: This is What a Feminist [Poet] Looks Like.

It got me thinking about something that happened recently. I had a wee bit too much to drink and some man poet said something a wee bit inappropriate, but I still had some level of sense to just walk away. About a minute later I joined the conversation of a group of poets and started speaking with another man poet (this one we'd call "successful") who years ago also said something a wee bit inappropriate. I have a very long memory for these kinds of things.

Funny how we unconsciously go towards what we're consciously trying to avoid.

Well, I must have used up all my sense for the evening because I rather rudely told this man poet what I thought of him. In a hilarious and entertaining way, of course. Or at least hilarious and entertaining to those around us.

There was a young woman, a student, in the group. She was the only woman in this group of roughly 6 poets. Strangely (or perhaps not so strangely) she took the successful male poet's defense and started ragging on me with him. I stopped my drunken verbal assault and in a moment of clarity, turned to her and asked "How old are you?" She said 20. Then I said something along the lines of "I get that you want all these man poets to like you and I'm sure they do, but you're limiting your options. The direction you're choosing, eating those like you for the approval of them, it has a real low ceiling that you'll hit in no time."

I can't remember if I used the term "daughter of the patriarchy" or not. Probably not.

Next morning I woke up and felt that tinge of regret one feels when one had a wee bit too much to drink. I saw the young woman and she seemed perfectly OK. I told this tale to an older, non-poet lady friend. She thought the young woman wasn't annoyed with me because she appreciated what I said.

Well, I don't know if she appreciated it or not, but she should have appreciation, if not now, maybe later. I had to learn that lesson the hard way.

I also told this tale to Charlie. Charlie suggested that I did not want for man poets and one less man poet in my realm was really no big deal. In fact, I could let go of a few more. He's right.

You know, just because a lady poet uses salty language that does not make her promiscuous or interested in you and what an incredibly egotistical leap for you to make. It does not make it OK for you to say "Hey, wanna go (somewhere) and fuck?" It's not funny. It's threatening. It's unwanted. And really gross. And that's the "wee bit inappropriate" comment made by both poets. And it's not OK. And it (and things similar) happens way too frequently. And I should be pissed off when it happens. Those are not the types of man poets I want in my realm nor do I want their defenders or apologists.

This is another version of what a [Tired of it All] Feminist [Poet] looks like.

Lightweight

I'm not so sure about this magic ring. I wore it overnight for the first time and I woke up not feeling so great around 6 a.m. I fell back asleep and dreamed that I was being unnecessarily testy with an Olive Garden waitress and afterward my sister commended me on my testiness. Then I woke up and spent most of Sunday being testy (not to waitresses and not with my sister cheering me on, but in general). Maybe my body needs time to adjust to the magic. I'll give it a few more days. I don't want to miss out on magical goodness because of my low tolerance.

You know, I had a magic ring in 6th grade and kids teased me about it. Eventually I stopped wearing it. That's something I regret.

Don't you tease me. I have a magic ring and I'm all grown up and I'm not afraid to use it.

Or blog about it.

Softening and Untangling the Thinking

Two dreams in over the past two nights about Rauan Klassnik and I can't remember any of the details. Frustrating.

One dream I do remember from this morning is swimming underwater playing some kind of fish game, where once the fish get enough to eat I draw a line around them and get points for catching them. Except I wasn't doing very well. No matter how hard I tried, I wasn't catching the fish. They hadn't eaten enough.

Then I found some hair products and heard my dad's voice tell me it was good that I found them.

This reminds me of a dream back in February where Rauan put conditioner in my hair.

So what is conditioning my thinking?

Rauan Klassnik is not important to my thinking.

Hah, hah, that's an old joke from an old blog from many years ago.

I dream of fish A LOT.

I'm reminded of another dream from June 2008 where an uncle (someone I'd classify as a "fool") told me that if I ever wanted to learn how to feed the fish, to just ask him.

Yesterday I wrote that I wanted to approach life as a novice, a beginner, in another term, a fool -- and here this dream shows I don't know how yet, I don't know how to feed the fish, but I find the conditioner and maybe that's a start.

Now where is Rauan to give me that scalp massage?

Maybe Later

Danny Gans passed away. I've been to Vegas twice, once staying in the hotel where he was performing, but never saw him perform. Everyone told me that he was the guy to see. I planned on it. Next time, I thought. That come to think of it, sounds a lot like Gideon's "maybe later" reply that is code for "no way, fuck off." He's 4 and has already declined on a whole host of things that shock me. You don't know what you're missing! I often tell him. You would love this. or There's more to life than pizza, grilled cheese and noodles.

I'm reminded of the time as an undergrad when I skipped Allen Ginsberg's reading. He spoke to our class in the afternoon, and yeah, he was kinda cool, but the reading was Friday night and I wanted to go out-of-town with my boyfriend. Out-of-town was Northern VA and my boyfriend is now my husband. So far I've spent 15 years in Northern Virginia with Chris and will likely spend many more. But I'll never have a chance to hear Ginsberg read. I unknowingly chose the considerably less unique experience. Maybe one could even say I chose love over poetry and perhaps on that instance I did. But here I am married and writing poems, so it really wasn't a choice after all. It was one missed opportunity. I've missed many.

Today I'm thinking of someone I recently met. Someone who was incredibly warm and kind to me. I was kind in return. I thought, "I like that guy" and that was that. It was a busy time, I was distracted. We could get to know one another some other day. You know, "maybe later." Now I'm thinking that might be another one of my many missed opportunities. Maybe I won't get a chance to develop a friendship with that person. Maybe I really missed out.

Obviously we can't follow up on every opportunity that comes our way, nor should we. There are definitely opportunities best passed on. But I'd to be more open to what I haven't been.

I want to approach life as a novice again.