My Daughter Says
My daughter say
she feels like a Martian,
that no one understands her,
that one friend is too perfect,
and another too mean,
and that she has
the earliest bedtime
in her whole class.
I strain to remember
how a third grader feels
about love, about pain
and I feel a hollow in my heart
where there should be blood
and an ache where there should
be certainty.
My darling Molly,
no earthling ever lived who did not feel
like a Martian,
who did not curse her bedtime,
who did not wonder
how she got to this planet,
who dropped her here
and why
and how she can possibly
stay.
I go to bed
whenever I like
and with whomever I choose,
but still I wonder
why I do not
belong in my class,
and where my class is anyway,
and why so many of them
seem to be asleep
while I toss and turn
in perplexity.
They, meanwhile, imagine I am perfect
and have solved everything:
an earthling among the Martians,
at home on her home planet,
feet planted in green grass.
If only we could all admit
that none of us belongs here,
that all of us are Martians,
and that our bedtimes
are always
too early
or
too late.
Erica Jong, Becoming Light: Poems: New and Selected. Harper, 1991 (acquired 1996)
When you hear the name, Erica Jong, some of you of a certain age, will think of her novel, Fear of Flying and remember it as this blurb from Amazon does: "Originally published in 1973, the groundbreaking, uninhibited story of Isadora Wing and her desire to fly free caused a national sensation. It fueled fantasies, ignited debates, and even introduced a notorious new phrase to the English language. Now, after thirty years, the revolutionary novel known as
Fear of Flying still stands as a timeless tale of self-discovery, liberation, and womanhood."
I don't remember if I was fearless enough to read it the early 70's. I had aspirations to be liberated and uninhibited, but by then I was a newly married, first grade teacher in a small town--not living the life that Erica Jong did. And what a life! She had 4 husbands and one child; I got by with one husband and 4 pregnancies. By the time I acquired this book of poetry, I was considerable more experienced and worldly and was writing poetry myself. Through some wonderful classes at the Loft with poet John Reinhard, I became part of a writers group that met regularly at a coffee shop on Grand Avenue. The group members were more talented and dedicated than I and became published poets: Mary Jo Thompson, Kathleen Jesme, Susan Steger Welsh. Still, I have folios full of poems that helped me find my way through things I didn't understand and couldn't have found any other way to express. Things like not belonging, like yes, being as uncertain and out of place as a Martian.
One of the first poems I wrote in my class at the Loft was about my daughter, who was a teenager at the time. Some people turn to alcohol; I was lucky to have poetry.
Erica Jong's daughter, Molly, no longer a 3rd grader, is a writer too. Somehow I ended up reading a chapter of her book, The Sex Doctors in the Basement: True Stories From a Semicelebrity Childhood.
Oy vey!
Fear of Flying still stands as a timeless tale of self-discovery, liberation, and womanhood."
I don't remember if I was fearless enough to read it the early 70's. I had aspirations to be liberated and uninhibited, but by then I was a newly married, first grade teacher in a small town--not living the life that Erica Jong did. And what a life! She had 4 husbands and one child; I got by with one husband and 4 pregnancies. By the time I acquired this book of poetry, I was considerable more experienced and worldly and was writing poetry myself. Through some wonderful classes at the Loft with poet John Reinhard, I became part of a writers group that met regularly at a coffee shop on Grand Avenue. The group members were more talented and dedicated than I and became published poets: Mary Jo Thompson, Kathleen Jesme, Susan Steger Welsh. Still, I have folios full of poems that helped me find my way through things I didn't understand and couldn't have found any other way to express. Things like not belonging, like yes, being as uncertain and out of place as a Martian.
One of the first poems I wrote in my class at the Loft was about my daughter, who was a teenager at the time. Some people turn to alcohol; I was lucky to have poetry.
Erica Jong's daughter, Molly, no longer a 3rd grader, is a writer too. Somehow I ended up reading a chapter of her book, The Sex Doctors in the Basement: True Stories From a Semicelebrity Childhood.
Oy vey!
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