Inspired by the Struggling Women Poets

From Marjorie Maddox’s book, True, False, None of the Above:

“To All The Struggling Women Poets”

jostling pen and junior,computer and comp classes,
lover and love of words -
step in with both feet dripping
with wrung-out dreams;
get your graying hair wet and wet again.
It will not get better. It will
not get easy to feed the few seeds
pushing themselves out
of your dry, crowded,
busy brain, but listen - 
when has your life been other
than what’s written 
here, now?

What was written about my life - here, now - because I read her poem:
"To All The Struggling Women Poets"

I no longer have Cheerios in my backseat
 or in my purse 
There are no more diapers, 
and trips to Starbucks - 
a bag filled with books and crayons and notebooks. 
Chocolate milks and a coffee 
and we sit at a table 
learning about letters; 
about making a mark 
and sharing it with the world 
 
At my desk at work now 
my notebook
 beside me to catch frazzled 
thoughts I want to make clear 
This is how it is. 
This is how it must be. 
This is how I know to do it. 
I am in and of the world 
and walking into work this morning 
I could smell the peonies 
before I got to them and then a
hummingbird 
hovered
and once
when I was in Santa Fe
walking to an important class
-something on faith and literature and life
and probably Cormac McCarthy and Walker Percy, too - 
and a man
an old man
spotted a hummingbird
“Look,” he told me
“Oh,” I said and I smiled
but I didn’t stop
because I didn’t understand
how to stop
I don’t think I understand now

And now I am at my desk
Evaluating transcripts
Imagining they are dreams
To be doctors
To be firefighters
To be biologists
“What do I have? What do I need?”
these dreams ask
laid out for me to see
“What have I done? What do I need to do?”

And now I get a text
from the girls
“At Starbucks with Corby!”
“Getting her a Pup Cup!”
And now I slide my notebook closer

Because I remember when we used to go
to Starbucks together
and I want to be there with them now

Because I love this little job I have
and the friends I am making

Because I love that my girls
spent the afternoon together
and took the dog
like Emily Dickinson did that one morning
and met the Sea

Because I hope the Sea stays
with them this time
when they get to the Solid Town -
when they get to all the Solid Towns
telling them how hard all this is
how hard it will always be

//


If I had a dime
by Melissa Kutsche (response to Marjorie Maddox's )

If I had a dime
for every time heard myself utter,
Motherhood broke my brain,
to justify some lapse in memory or manners, 
one of the tiny people in my home would probably hide them all,
tiny, gleaming discs shining under couch cushions and behind the piano.
Maybe my son would even swallow one,
which is a nice way to get popcorn in the hospital waiting area,
and laugh at your mom sifting through the toilet’s contents 
several times a day 
for a week
when no one can spot the dime on the x-ray.
Or maybe I’d actually catch all those dimes in my open hands,
the way I catch footballs 
in the front yard,
matchbox cars 
chucked across the playroom at a sibling,
and vomit (because that’s just a skill all moms have).
How heavy they’d be, how cool?
But I’d give them all back 
for a complete thought,
a linear conversation, 
uninterrupted streams of ink bleeding across the page.
Yes, I’d be in the red.
But my hands would be open again—
ready to catch an idea,
hold onto words until bedtime,
pay off my debts with prose, 
break your heart with a story.

//

To all those struggling women poets

turning a phrase like a coin
in one hand while the other
calculates wifely duties and 
motherly ones, threading time 
in a string of beads, one 
for a poem unwritten, another for
commitments you’ve made.
It’s not that you’d go back,
tides rolling out of the body
that built all this, trade one
watery dream for another.
You thought you could have
it all, but listen–
when has sea ever stopped
moving? Even in stillness
something is happening
below.

-by Lindsay Crandall (after Marjorie Maddox)