#52to52 MOTHERS
Ahhh ...ye of little faith! Less than a week and I'm back! I've added the app for my website so I'm hoping it'll be easier to blog.
Tuesday finds me waiting like an expectant parent for the proof copy of my collection. It's the culmination of a few years of writing and I'm so excited to hold it in my sticky little mitts.
We invest such a lot of time and effort into our writing that putting a collection together truly does feel like a labour of sorts. The seed which sparks a poem then implants itself into your mind and transfers to your pen and paper, a conception. One by one your list of poems grows , each one sent out into the big wide world when they are submitted and the joy or sadness that comes with acceptance or rejection. We all have a need for others to love our babies, so rejection hurts as much as someone not finding our babies as cute as we do ourselves. A collection is the bringing back together of those children, lining them up in a family photo which is the public face of your very best and proudest work.
I am so emotional about my collection 'Tadaima', it is a culmination of a couple of years of writing in which I think I have grown as a poet and these poems feel like a step up from 'Uninvited Guests'. I am being published by Yaffle which is already beginning to feel like a family. I don't like the term 'stablemate' when referring to poets published by the same company, 'family' seems so much more ... welcoming. You can see what we are up to here ...
https://www.yafflepress.co.uk/
MOTHER'S DAY
Sunday this week is Mother's day. I thank my lucky stars every day that I am lucky enough to.have three beautiful daughters and that my gorgeous mum is healthy and lives nearby. Sunday will be a celebration of those relationships as we come together as a family to eat and drink and laugh.
But there are other relationships which require us to 'mother'. I also have a step son, Andy in whose life I have been an important figure at times. At the moment our relationship isn't as close as it was but I hope in the future it can be again.I have a poem in 'Tadaima' about being a stepmother, it is also published in 'Watch the Birdie' by Beautiful Dragons Press, you can find it here ...https://beautifuldragons.net/birdie
But there are other ways in which we become mothers. I have found myself being a mother figure to certain of my friends, especially when for one reason or other their own mothers are absent. We should perhaps mother ourselves a bit more, nuture the relationship we have with ourselves so it grows and is healthy. There are times in my life when I have not had the best relationship with myself and there are still times that I could quite easily dump 'me' and find another , more organised, slimmer, fitter lover. But I'm the only 'me' I have so I try and have the best friendship with myself that I can. Those of us with pets also feel like parents to them, sometimes.
I hope you have a lovely week, whatever you are doing. Mother's Day isnt great for some, I know and I have some friends for whom this mother's day, especially, will be hard. I send my love to you.
I've just heard that the stork has been and now I'm crying. Like a baby.
