{"id":8132,"date":"2011-04-05T16:30:37","date_gmt":"2011-04-05T20:30:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=8132"},"modified":"2011-04-05T16:30:37","modified_gmt":"2011-04-05T20:30:37","slug":"the-blogger-to-his-sanity-checks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2011\/04\/the-blogger-to-his-sanity-checks\/","title":{"rendered":"The Blogger to His Sanity Checks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here in the USA, April is National Poetry Month. (Yes, among all the other months it is. See here<\/a> for a bunch of others — scroll down the page a ways. Frog Month! Straw Hats Month! National DNA & Genomics & Stem Cell Education & Awareness Month! (The posters for that last one are about eight feet wide but only a foot high.)) Every day during this time, the normally weekly newsletter of the Poetry Daily<\/em> site<\/a> will feature a favorite poem selected and commented on by an active poet. Yesterday, Julie Sheehan chose the following, from Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672):<\/p>\n

The Author to Her Book<\/strong><\/p>\n

Thou ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain,
\nWho after birth didst by my side remain,
\nTill snatched from thence by friends, less wise than true,
\nWho thee abroad, exposed to public view,
\nMade thee in rags, halting to th’ press to trudge,
\nWhere errors were not lessened (all may judge).
\nAt thy return my blushing was not small,
\nMy rambling brat (in print) should mother call,
\nI cast thee by as one unfit for light,
\nThe visage was so irksome in my sight;
\nYet being mine own, at length affection would
\nThy blemishes amend, if so I could.
\nI washed thy face, but more defects I saw,
\nAnd rubbing off a spot still made a flaw.
\nI stretched thy joints to make thee even feet,
\nYet still thou run’st more hobbling than is meet;
\nIn better dress to trim thee was my mind,
\nBut nought save homespun cloth i’ th’ house I find.
\nIn this array ‘mongst vulgars may’st thou roam.
\nIn critic’s hands beware thou dost not come,
\nAnd take thy way where yet thou art not known;
\nIf for thy father asked, say thou hadst none;
\nAnd for thy mother, she alas is poor,
\nWhich caused her thus to send thee out of door.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m curious to hear from RAMH<\/em>‘s regular crowd of intelligent readers (and from any newcomers, for that matter):<\/p>\n

What does this poem say?<\/em><\/p>\n

Reason I ask is, Ms. Sheehan interpreted it in way I never ever would have come up with on my own. An excerpt:<\/p>\n

“The Author to her Book”… has the fresh, direct and tough qualities of private language among familiars. We don\u2019t hear so much as overhear it. Unstintingly, unsentimentally she describes the child: “ill-formed,” “in rags, halting,” “rambling brat,” “unfit for light.” The language is brutal, a brutality necessary to control the anguish of the mother, who knows her darling goes into a world as harsh as the one it leaves. At the matter-of-fact acknowledgment, “Yet being mine own, at length affection would \/ Thy blemishes amend, if so I could,” the poem gets down to the business of mothering. The speaker administers a practiced, vigorous spit shine of the kind that only mothers can give and only their children can endure. But by the end, the mother’s fear for her child is palpable. She is piling on the advice. The final couplet turns its attention on the “poor” mother whose financial circumstances are so harsh they “caused her thus to send thee out of door.” It’s all the more tender for the absence of self-pity, except for that “alas” in the penultimate line.<\/p>\n

…She is relinquishing her poems out of love for them, just as a parent relinquishes her child to “take thy way where yet thou art not known,” but she’s hardly romanticizing that process. So we start the poem thinking the poet is abject (“my feeble brain”), but we end with tremendous respect for her strength.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(I can’t find the full commentary online, but that’s pretty much the part which confused and\/or sobered me.)<\/p>\n

Since first reading this, I’ve wondered if I’d been wrong about it all along. (And yes, I’ll let you know what that interpretation is\/was, once I’ve heard from somebody<\/em> else on the subject.)<\/p>\n

By the way, Julie Sheehan is the author of — among other collections — Bar Book: Poems and Otherwise<\/em><\/a>. For a certain sort of reader, that table of contents must be among the most charming imaginable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here in the USA, April is National Poetry Month. (Yes, among all the other months it is. See here for a bunch of others — scroll down the page a ways. Frog Month! Straw Hats Month! National DNA & Genomics & Stem Cell Education & Awareness Month! (The posters for that last one are about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[94,37,36,251],"tags":[2301,2302,2303,2304,2305],"class_list":{"0":"post-8132","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-02_in-the-news","7":"category-onlineworld","8":"category-reading","9":"category-poetry-writing_cat","10":"tag-anne-bradstreet","11":"tag-julie-sheehan","12":"tag-the-author-to-her-book","13":"tag-poetry-daily","14":"tag-national-poetry-month","15":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-27a","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8132"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8132\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8133,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8132\/revisions\/8133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}