Bad Ideas Done Right

"Mommy poems" are a kind of maligned genre, often rightfully so. It seems too easy to find inspiration/wisdom/anecdotes in the behavior of your kids and then "poemicize it." It's kind of like pastors who only hang around their kids for the purpose of getting sermon illustrations. Not to mention, if we want funny stories or wisdom about kids we'll find some bargain bin book at Barnes & Noble that will do the trick without all the metaphors and rhyme schemes.

But every genre is valid when it's done right. I firmly believe that execution is more important than conception - the worst idea done right is a masterpiece. Just look at Picasso's "Guernica" or Frank Miller's "The Dark Knight Returns." 

Here's something that should make mommy poets proud. It's all about conceiving and birthing, but in 5-line rhythmic stanzas reminiscent of limericks, with a title that sounds like an homage to Renaissance portraits of Mary and the Christ child. By all rights it should be terrible.

Woman to Child

Judith Wright

You who were darkness warmed my flesh
where out of darkness rose the seed.
Then all a world I made in me;
all the world you hear and see
hung upon my dreaming blood.


There moved the multitudinous stars,
and cloured birds and fishes moved.
There swam the sliding continents.
All time lay rolled in me, and sense,
and love that knew not its beloved.


O node and focus of the world;
I hold you deep within the well
you shall escape and not escape-
that mirrors still your sleeping shape;
that nurtures still your crescent cell.


I wither and you break from me;
yet though you dance in living light
I am the earth, I am the root,
I am the stem that fed the fruit,
the link that joins you to the night.