Public School Poetry (pt 1)
A new way to lit journal
I was lucky enough to have four poems accepted to the latest edition of Public School Poetry. PSP is a different kind of lit mag: besides publishing new poems, each poet whose work is accepted must write a 5-paragraph essay — à la public school — about another poet’s work that appears in the journal. They encourage you to take that prompt in whatever direction you like, so for mine, I decided to really lay into the traditions of the format.
I got to write my 5-paragraph essay about the work of Onna Solomon (tho they don’t tell you who the author is when you are given the poems to respond to). When we read the essays, she was very gracious about mine and asked that, if I were to be reading at the upcoming live release of the magazine in Ann Arbor, that I NOT share my essay because her children were coming and she didn’t want them to think she hated them. I told her that I totally understood and that I too would not want to read the piece in front of my own child.
You can read her work here and see my essay below her poems (with its original fonts and formatting). But here’s the text of it with slightly less cool fonts. I also included with my submission (and below) my 5-paragraph essay house brainstorming structure that Mrs. Hart taught me in 1992 at Elwood Elementary Consolidated School District #203. Hooray for public school!
“Have Kids? Maybe!”
by Robbie Q. Telfer
Bam! Pow! Crash! That is the sound that your heart makes when reading the poems of __________. But you do not have to go see a heart specialist doctor, you are merely feeling feelings! Phew! Today, I will be discussing the four poems of __________ as published in the Fall 2024 edition of Public School Poetry and the thesis that having children ruins even the most modest dreams of fanciness and personal space. As a parent myself, I definitely agree with that! Today, we will discuss how children ruin your life by looking at 1) how they ruin your fancy dreams, 2) then how they ruin your personal space, and 3) finally, some solutions.
First, having children ruins your dreams of fancy things. Now, for some people, when they dream of fancy things for themselves, they go big! Like I want a huuuuuuge saltwater fish tank and a exact (working) replica of an X-Wing. But not ________, this poetess with the mostess just wants a red purse with paper money in it (!) and hands like her gentle grandpa. And even the sorta fancy stuff she DOES have (origami paper, garden) gets all messed up. This idea is perhaps best exemplified by the poem “The Earwax in My AirPods” where the author is daydreaming about fancy glass animals she will never have while looking at her waxy ear buds. And while she does not mention her child(ren) in this poem, we can assume she cannot have glass animals because kids break things and probably also her ears are producing extra wax because of the stress and fear of parenting as according to the “AI Overview” of google.com last accessed July 16th 2024 when it states, “Yes, stress can increase earwax production, especially when combined with fear. When you feel stressed, your apocrine glands, which produce earwax, increase their production. Stress hormones, like cortisol, can also affect the function of the glands in the ear canal, which may lead to increased earwax production.” But what is she afraid of? The author does not say, but we can be pretty sure it’s having another baby on accident.
Secondly, kids ruin your personal space. In the poem “Unfolding” we see a fun “dance party” and a “lovely hike” that are both “ruined” by her son. This child also crosses the line when he jiggles some dough and turns it into a simulacra for the author’s tum. She is generous with the kid for doing so, as he does it with delight and without judgment, but from my personal experience having my child compare my own jiggling tummy to other jiggling objects, it can take its toll. The child(ren) further obliterate(s) the simple fantasies of the author by constantly interrupting her, forcing her to “find a thing, to wash/a thing, to bandage,/to chop, to mend.” Clearly, no place, either in the external physical world or in the once-safe respite of the mind, is safe from the demands of parenting.
Finally, solutions! What is a bedraggled parent to do in this workaday world of earwax and unwashed “things”? Lucky for us, the author supplies us with all the life hacks we need to make it from one fresh hell to the next! If our kids are making us feel uptight, inflexible, and stressed out, we can merely “...unfold our grasp,...soften like the clenched/soil softens to let up the crocuses and squill/...trust what we love in this world.” If our expectations, albeit modest, are too lofty, we can “...do the slow work/of unpicking each stitch/and, like a spider breaks down her web,/I will take it down/and weave, slowly weave/a new way to catch/love and allow it to stick.” And if we feel like the great glass case of our identity has been smudged too much by greedy little fingers trying to get at all of our soul’s cream puffs, we can dole out a few of our hot-fudge-covered ones, but then keep the vast majority of these “gems glimmering below” the “clear glass countertop” for ourselves.
All in all, being a person is hard. Whether it’s the news or our impending and inevitable deaths, people have a lot on their plate. And if you are a people who have MADE people, then you have just doubled or tripled or quadrupled your stresses as you now worry enough for everyone. That is the main takeaway from the poems of _________, that having children ruins even the most modest dreams of fanciness and personal space. Luckily, we have the gentle guidance of this poet to help us through this journey called “life” so that when our hearts do finally go BAM! to the cardiologist, we have these kind and generous meditations to quicken our recovery. 5 out of 5 stars!
I will make a second, forthcoming post about my poems in the issue and their accompanying essay. Yeehaw!