My Son, the Poet?

A couple of weeks back, I did a local reading at Sip This cafe', in Valley Stream, a near suburb of New York City, and just a few miles from the hometown to which I returned in 2008, because my wife and I wanted Bradley to be close to at least one side of his family. We did not move back here for the poetry scene, though there is a lively one.

On this particular night a few months back I was reading with Gerry LaFemina, a great poet, a great friend, and the father of grown son. Gerry was happy Bradley was going to watch us do our thing. Bradley's only previous reading was at the Brownstone Poets Series in a diner in Downtown Brooklyn, when he was two. At that reading he managed to disrupt the proceedings and upset a lot of the grumpier regulars. This time would be different.

Bradley sat mostly quiet, and occasionally got up for one of the cafe''s good cookies or to use the bathroom. I'd given Bradley my Kindle, so he could play an app or two in case he got bored. Just after Gerry read, he came over, sat on my lap, and asked if he could read a poem. He had seen me search the poems I had on the Kindle. I knew that he would not be the first kid to read at Sip This, having seen young Atticus and Rainer Pasca read with their parent/poets Matt Pasca and Terri Muuss.

After the last open mic-er had read, it was Bradley's turn. People started getting up to leave, but Bradley was unfazed, took the mic, and launched into it:

Your Mother

I celebrate your mother and sing your mother,

and what I assume your mother shall assume.

And though I could not stop for your mother

she kindly stopped for me. Your mother, after all,

is not so old I could omit her, because

there is no country for old mothers.

Of course my boy chose one of the silliest and most vulgar poems I have, because he knows how to please a crowd. So all well and good, except that after the reading he asked me when the next reading was. So now we have to find a new poem for him to do. And guess who's reading with Daddy on our mutual birthday weekend? 

How long before we're workshopping? 

My Son's First Stories

A couple of days ago my son sat next to me on the couch and wrote his first two stories. We have, since he was four (He's six), sat in the local park, on little blue metal benches at one of the workout stations, and told stories, chance a piece. So when he sat down with his index card notebook and a pen, I was not too surprised, and, though I don't wish the life of a writer on anyone, more than a little thrilled.

The writing was basically illegible, as he was trying for words he doesn't really know how to spell yet, but both stories involved "kids being naughty"; and one involved a kid leaving his "fake parents." As I said, I couldn't make much sense of his spelling, which may be just as well, since, when I went to look for these precious index cards just now, I learned they were accidentally thrown away.

The themes of his writing and the loss will almost certainly make him a writer.

We Bought My Son a Drum Kit

As a writer, as someone who craves peace, as someone who can be, frankly, anti-social at times, I have to question our decision to buy Bradley a drum kit for his sixth birthday. Yes, it is an appropriately and mercifully small drum kit (bass drum, tom, snare, hi-hat), but since we lack a finished basement, it now resides in the middle of our living room. That is not an exaggeration. We have a lovely white divan, the ottoman portion of which is now Bradley's drum stool. I have to admit that I was hoping he wouldn't love it. But he is a high-energy, determined, loud music-loving kid. Once we downloaded a couple of songs for him to drum along with ("Yellow Submarine," "Back in Black"--We haven't yet downloaded "Seven Nation Army," as a drummer friend suggested), the game was over for us. Whereas he usually has an attention span of five minutes, Bradley is able to sit at the kit for an hour sometimes, pounding away, very often actually on the beat. The saving grace thus far is that he does not favor the cymbal. We may have to conspire never to let him know there was a band called Led Zeppelin.

Sam and Dave in a Jetta

It's 7:30 on a cool, August evening. The sun is setting through the pine trees on our little piece of land. We are sitting in our ten year-old VW Jetta, playing spaceship. I am wearing a pair of 3D glasses taken from a movie theater and deposited in the door compartment for moments like these, I suppose. Bradley, now four and a half, asks if we can listen to his Kidz Bop cd. I agree, on the condition that we go one song apiece, back and forth, his cds, my cds. Amazingly, he agrees. He rocks out to his synthesized dance tunes. I go all Sam and Dave: "Wrap It Up." The tepid response I expect never comes. Instead, as soon as the horns kick in, Bradley screws up his face like a rock star and starts shaking and jumping all over the interior. I get cocky and try "Soul Man." He hits eject. I do my duty, whooping with him through "Who Let the Dogs Out." And, limited as I am by distance from home and little living space, I pull out the only other possible cd, Boston. He can't deal with the acoustic opening of "More Than a Feeling," so hits the skip track button, and practically rockets through the roof when he hears the opening chords to "Peace of Mind." By the time the electric guitar joins, he's slamming against the dashboard, his safety seat, the back doors. He's rolling down a back window and pushing open the door, swaying in the grass outside the car like a possessed see-saw. I look over my shoulder to see if my wife, working inside the trailer, is catching any of this. When we come back to tell her, she says, "Of course I heard you. The whole town heard you." 

Tribute to My Son's Summers

Here's an ode to the accent my son will hear on his summer vacations, and to the 15th anniversary of the classic movie "Fargo."

Great Lakes

 

Barn yard on my father’s farm:

The car alarm! I’m seein’ stars.

Bob’s at the bar with Carl and Marge.

It’s not far, but parking’s hard.

And, Oh, God, what’s that large mark

on your forearm. Fooling with the dog,

now that wasn’t too smart.

Your head was always hard.

 Too many movin’ parts. We’re dodgin’ rocks,

but you got a big heart, big as Scot’s.

His snow-thrower’s big as an ox.

Now relax, and let me charge the box.

A Pre-Parent Vision

Friends, here is something I wrote just before the advent of our son Bradley. Is this a metaphorically prescient grasp of parenthood?

Their Little Ears are Sensitive

Consider this when you plan your trip.

Stuff your little ones with cotton balls,

to keep their ears from popping.

Their little bums are sensitive.

Lay in loads of aloe for the bumpy trip

over the Ambibian mountains,

because their little feet are expensive.

If they shatter, the sound is startling.

Their little hands are starting to reach

for the controls. Slap them down

and scream louder than they can.

Their little grips are like vices

you have when they aren’t looking,

and your little face is a pliable board.

They hold you in some kind of place.

Their little minds are like sponges.

Remember to wring them out.

Their little heads wobble,

so secure them, with tape if need be,

or teach them to focus

their little eyes on a single finger

you flash like a knife

you should never leave out,

because their little wills

are stronger than yours.

Yelling and Screaming

I used to save much of my yelling and screaming for the page. Over the last year or two (Bradley's third and fourth years on Earth), I've been doing more of it aloud and more often seeking peace (understanding of screaming and yelling's root causes?) on the page. Or is that a misconception? Does anger with a child's irrational stubbornness or with one's own inability to cope with it translate into rage on the page? Or does it really turn the process of writing into a meditative walk by the holy pond with its silent, scheming koi?

I've always thought that distance from raging emotions was a necessity for writing anything other than spoken word-style poetry. But what if the writer/parent lives in a state of constant emotional rage, which roils either above, below, or well below the surface of that pond? What if this rage subsides only when the child's raging hormones lead him/her away from the shadow of the host fish? Or what if at that point it just explodes?

A Fourth Parentish Poem (Mother's Day Edition)

Hi, Mom!

            For Denise, on Mother’s Day

Someday you will be on the receiving end

of the athlete’s face-flash, thumbs-up wave

to the force responsible for all he is today.

Now you are the hands that wipe face and tear

chicken into tiny strips on plastic plates

you wash and stack three times each day.

Five years hence you will buy spiral-bounds

and comic book lunch boxes soon lost

or left for dead on schoolyard steps.

Sometime next year you will exhale,

even when you’re not alone or free

to finish a report or nap on a cloud.

At a certain age, you will wonder again

if you really are a mom when the proof

lives elsewhere with another pretty blond.

This is the game you’ve joined late,

looking for yourself laughing in the stands,

seeing you’ve always been on the field yourself.

A Third Parentish Poem

At Three

He asks my wife

“Why daddy not here?”

when she takes him

to the park or school.

We see a grasp

of human need

and motive. Why,

we do not agree.

He does not know

why we work or play.

He does not know

people often move

cold to his whim.

In this delusion

we are one blood.

My wife starts the car

and pulls away.
 

Another Parentish Poem

You’re Gettin’ There

After five summers of foot-messenger days

and countless 4 a. m. pots of joe over

hastily written studies of single lines,

after wandering drunk and American through

Bolivian, Portuguese, Indian shanty towns, dust

sopping my collagens, after millions of meetings

between my jogger’s knees and pot-holed asphalt roads,

after weeks of meetings in laminate conference rooms,

discussing plans still at doodle stage,

after thousands of months aboard commuter trains

smelling of backed-up porta-john and rancid pizza,

after five servings of fennel sausage and fake crab meat

at each of ten annual family feasts,

after twenty-one walk-up flats, one co-op, one condo,

one private house and two upstate vacation plots,

after two gerbils, four guinea pigs, a goldfish,

a ferocious Persian cat, five thousand walks

of a fluffy dog with inch-long fangs and attitude,

after three squally marriages and four overcast live-in trysts,

after two years of hormone injections

and an adoption across three continents,

after the endless discovery of poopie diapers,

after the same three episodes of a pre-school puppet show

over and over again, after a majority of sex-less months

and resignation to limited success

my mother eyes my gray strands, creased cheeks, blank eyes

and announces, “You’re gettin’ there.”

A New Parentish Poem

Bathing a Samoyed

My son is bouncing on his bed, because

it is new bought, because

he does not want to bathe, because

he wants to show me he is not the dog

that passed away St. Patty’s night five years ago.

His voices for penitence, anger, revolt

surrender to ghosts that never expunge

the wars and disasters from cable news.

I remember Samoyeds squirm constantly

but most dogs accept the bath as part

of the normal cycle of canine life.

I’ve coerced him into the tub.

The instructions also advise to drag.

Dog living. My boy slips under the suds,

his hair like the bygone sailor’s,

guileless siren to himself.

When eyes sting he’ll let me know

while I remember walking him, the lift

of the leg and daydreams through magnolias

to the insight that it was that moment

we’d spend our late years aping. I was

doomed to early death the night he dropped

to the pavement, licked his cancerous paw

and sighed, remembering then to ask myself

Am I watching him die?, my son

rolling on the carpet now. Playing with blocks

and trucks is so much harder than you think

once the rest is long behind you, once

compared to tasks with clear-cut steps.

When the fur feels free of soap, remove

your samoyed. He will probably jump out gladly.

My son is bouncing in front of clouds

of deadly steam from containment walls

and revolutionists leaking blood.

Samoyeds readily show disdain.

I am silent. It is 3 p. m. and I want to sleep

through his first dog and the rest of his youth.

He lays his head on my chest and asks,

kicking me in a stretch for the remote,

Daddy, now can we watch my show?

Snow Days of Glory

So we go back to praying for snow days. These are the best days for striking the right balance between time with the kid and time with the computer screen. An hour ago I was a horse carting my son around the bedroom; then I was a wrestler, squaring off against him on the mattress; now, I am a candidate for carpal tunnel syndrome. What in the past would have been toss-off work, stuff to get done between grinding on the novel chapter for days on end, is now a pleasure. I write 500-word reviews, I write rejection letters, I stuff envelopes, ergo sum, pure as the snow that makes this time to savor even mundane work possible, making somehow the work seem like it will always be there, and so far less important than my son grows out of his needing me as quickly as I can pull an old muscle strain or as the snow melts or as the crocus pokes out its lovely head then disappears for another spring when I hope to stay young enough to keep up the play.

Child-Rearing, Writing and Weight Loss

Obviously the first and second do not promote the third, but sometimes, especially in these post-holiday times, we all need it. So here I go again, on the drastic diet and back to running + other exercise every day, thinking perhaps I will not meet all of those January writing deadlines, and resorting to a "Biggest Loser" challenge with my sister. The target date is April Fool's. The joke, as always, is on the middle-aged writer.

On the Beam

It is easy to fall off the beam when you have a young child. All beams: physical, mental, spiritual, artistic, logical. Getting back on requires a new kind of balance, a new center of gravity that helps you dangle one foot over the edge, with one eye on the beam your child occupies, far less conscious of your own position.

A Blog about Writing, Art and Raising Kids

Anything with a "hood" attached scares me, including my old Lincoln Town Car, so here and following will be thoughts on the mental high-wire act of writing semi-seriously while semi-seriously raising a child (young or old). Welcome are everyone's ruminations and advice.

Sounds Like "Chan Choo"

“What do we say?” I ask
the two year-old whose
raising is my task.

He answers me in the cold
playroom, “Sit!” still
needing to be told

the magic word when
you want someone to follow
an order set as question.

His “pease” rings hollow
among the toys whose parts
I hope he doesn’t swallow.

I jump when he starts
for my naked desk
to practice his dark arts

on mousepad and blotter.
In my weary arms
he is slick as an otter,

barking, “Mine, mine”
at my hand and all he sees,
as all that was once the line

between me and them
disappears in sippy cups
and apothegm

about ways to change
a soggy diaper,
while not to estrange

myself from the tongue
I spoke before I was
devoured by my young.

Where's the Machine?

How is it that computer placement can mean so much?

In our duplex bedroom apartment, we have two computers on the upper level (our offices), a desktop on our kitchen table, and two laptops that make the rounds. It's hard to spend time on the second floor, because that either takes us our of Bradley earshot or brings him upstairs where he demands we play with him instead of working on our computer. Downstairs we at least have a shot at keeping him amused for stretches of time (20-30 minutes) while we work. Of course if only one of us is home, the situation becomes even less manageable.

I used to try and sit on the floor with him, "playing," while sneaking minutes to type or read. Aside from the detrimental (to him and me) distraction, the challenge to get mental focus from zero to sixty in three seconds was enormous. Even with half-hour stretches of work, this is a huge problem.

A couple of months ago, I gave up trying to divide attention, and now save writing for the downstairs desktop, at times my wife takes Bradley out; for an hour or two at the upstairs desktop after Bradley goes down and before the customary midnight bedtime (which leaves barely enough hours to sleep before he wakes up between 7:30 and 8); and for the laptop when I am out of town or away at our summer property by myself, or, if I'm there with Denise and Bradley, for nighttime, when he's asleep and Denise also has work to do. (On the property we stay in a camper that has one small table, on which we set our two laptops back to back. Sometimes, one or both of us can sit on the deck and write, but with Bradley loose on two acres, this isn't a great option.)

So, where and how do you work and watch you kids at the same time? Do you? How have you arranged your living space to combine or separate work and child-rearing?

Posts on Creating Art and Raising Child(ren) Welcome

This blog welcomes all of your posts and comments on the topic. Call it one pathway to sanity and maybe productivity.

Bradley in Florida

My son Bradley, two and a half, a thirty-three-inch-high, acrobatic, high-energy, bundle of sheer will, is back in Florida, whence he came to us in October 2008. My wife and I are parents in our forties, both professors and writers. I have been publishing for over twenty years, and had just begun to achieve some success when Bradley arrived. In other words, I hit that crucial point in the career when writers grow or slowly disappear.

I'm here in Florida with Bradley, giving my wife time to do research on the Italian Americans of Tampa, her current subject. This little vacation follows a ten-day solo stint on my little place in Upstate New York, during which I was able to keep my own schedule and write as much as I pleased. In that short time, I finished more work than I had in the previous nine months, including a short story owed an editor, the first chapter of a cookbook, and the last portion of a story that will round out a small collection of "Pope Stories." That's the reality.

I'm going to blog for a little while on putting writing out of my mind for a while, the adjustment to that, and strategies for getting back to it on Bradley's schedule, not mine.

Please join in.

On Writing and Raising a Kid (I won't call it "parenthood")

Anything with a "hood" attached scares me, including my old Lincoln Town Car, so here and following will be thoughts on the mental high-wire act of writing semi-seriously while semi-seriously raising a child (young or old). Welcome are everyone's ruminations and advice.