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Poetry & Parenting: Little Sleep’s-Head Sprouting Hair in the Moonlight

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 Galway Kinnell

Little Sleep’s-Head Sprouting Hair in the Moonlight is a poem by Galway Kinnell.  I’m posting just the first section here, but will give a you a link to the whole piece. Little Sleep-Head is part of Kinnell’s book, The Book of Nightmares, which is a long poem in ten sections. The Book of Nightmares is an amazing work. Kinnell published it in 1971 and got some pretty good feedback.  Actually, it was called a classic and deemed his masterpiece as soon as it came out.  Robert Hass (another favorite poet of mine) had this to say about it, “It is increasingly clear that Kinnell’s ambition all along has been to hold death up to life, as if he had it by the scruff of the neck, and to keep it there until he has extracted a blessing from it.”

My copy is full of scrawled notes from a workshop I took with David St. John a few years ago. This is the kind of book you feel lucky to spend a whole day studying, but then you realize that even this kind of close reading only scratches the surface.

I think this section of Little Sleep’s-Head holds feelings recognizable to parents. The child wakes from nightmare, as a parent, you console her and know how much she draws from your strength. As I read this section again, I realize that I still hold the belief in the permanence of my parents. Not as a child does, but see what you think. Maybe it’s just the grateful memory of all their steadiness over the years. I like reading this both ways – as a parent and as a daughter.

Little Sleep’s-Head Sprouting Hair in the Moonlight
by Galway Kinnell

You scream, waking from a nightmare.

When I sleepwalk
into your room, and pick you up,
and hold you up in the moonlight, you cling to me
hard,
as if clinging could save us. I think
you think
I will never die, I think I exude
to you the permanence of smoke or stars,
even as
my broken arms heal themselves around you.

 

Here’s the link to the rest of the piece: Little Sleep’s-Head Sprouting Hair in the Moonlight.

photo credit: Mark Seton via photopin cc

Twitt

Poetry & Parenting: Chorus

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Chorus by Catherine Barnett

I am exhausted- working all the time, one kid sick, heartache an unfortunate side effect of life right now. Divorce is a hard ambush and I’ve got more grey hair than ever. My house is a mess, but I did vacuum tonight. I’m eating cold chicken noodle soup at 9:50pm and that’s dinner.  At least I remembered to pick up a bottle of wine. And that’s not all. I met today’s deadline. I returned emails and nursed my poor sick girl. Paid some bills and fed the cats. I am getting done what I need to get done.  What I’d really like will happen in August.  I’ll go home and see my parents.  My dad will grill steaks and cook steamers, served with a good red. My mom will pick up peaches from the farm stand down the road, play Scrabble with me and the girls and give me a soft, tender place to land for a while.  Until then, here’s a poem I just discovered tonight by Catherine Barnett.  She had me at the first line.

Chorus

by Catherine Barnett

So who mothers the mothers
who tend the hallways of mothers,
the spill of mothers, the smell of mothers,
who mend the eyes of mothers,
the lies of mothers scared
to turn on lights in basements
filled with mothers called by mothers in the dark,
the kin of mothers, the gin of mothers,
mothers out on bail,
who mothers the hail-mary mothers
asleep in their stockings
while the crows sing heigh ho carrion crow,
fol de riddle, lol de riddle,
carry on, carry on—

- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/23143#sthash.zySNPsIP.dpuf

photo credit: Eric.Parker via photopin cc

Twitt

Poetry & Parenting: Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening

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Robert Frost

Today I’m a bit late in posting.  Taxes due! A sick child to tend to! And other writing that had to be done! But hopefully, late is better than never.

I didn’t grow up with parents who were writers and while everyone read a lot, no one was particularly partial to poetry.  In first grade, I had one of those magic teachers who sneaks in learning to an unruly bunch of young savages without them even knowing it.  Mrs. Wells was one of those teachers.  She loved art.  She was gracious and patient and even had shy, little me getting up in front of the class to read to everyone. She’s probably the reason I’m a poet.  (Thank you Mrs. Wells!)

My mother tells me that I came home from school one day, stood at the end of our white linoleum table and recited Robert Frost’s Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening when I was six.  These are the types of things that make mother’s hearts beat a little quicker with pride. And I sure I could still get my mom to say she’s proud that I can recite that poem forty years later (or maybe it’s just me that’s impressed considering  how bad my memory generally is).  So here’s a little Robert Frost.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

BY ROBERT FROST

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

 

photo credit: thelearnedfoot_ via photopin cc

Twitt