It’s been a cool summer, for the most part. We’ve spent a number of evenings in front of the fireplace in the big cottage—at one time six grandchildren, their parents, and Jerry and me (the others had come earlier). My press had sent me a carton of 25 advance copies of my new book of poems, No Need of Sympathy. The book is dedicated to my grandchildren, and I wanted each child to have a copy.
But the sequence called “The Grandmother Sonnets,” one for each child, are not children’s poems. They deal with complex emotions, often alluding to difficult situations, often from my own past. Maybe they’re my anti-Hallmark poems. I’ve always wanted to wash the sugar off my hands when I read poems by grandmothers about their grandchildren.
Our combined grandchildren are ages 9-20. What a range! I could (1) hand the parents the books and trust that when the kids are older, they’ll read the poems and be able to understand them, or (2) read the poems to them now and talk them through a bit and hope for the best. I showed the poems to the parents first, to get their sense of things. Then with great trepidation, I read each child his or her poem, aloud to the group, plus a few others. I warned the kids that these are adult poems. I briefly talked about what an Italian sonnet is. The parents are all big readers, but not of poetry, so I felt I need to help them, too.
But how much help? If I paraphrase the poem, the poem disappears. Anyway, I don’t have a nice, neat paraphrase in my head. If I did, might as well write an essay instead of a poem. This is a bigger issue than what to do for my immediate family. Teachers have this to face all the time. Shall I give my students essentially a Cliff Notes version of Shakespeare? Shall I paraphrase for them, line by line, Hopkins’ “The Windhover”?
Here’s one of the sonnets in the sequence. I wanted to somehow write the complexity of step-grandmothering, the sense that it can’t quite be done adequately, that all the trying in the world won’t make me a “real” grandmother to this child. And that also, I haven’t done enough, haven’t tried enough.
Joie, 7
The child’s serious brown eyes, full without prejudice.Eyes like her mother’s: part mirror, part well.The step-grandmother flies to Oregon, not to be remissat grandmothering. Ah, a child can easily tellthe truth of absence! Here in the minivan’s back seat,they find objects out the window, beginning with lettersof the alphabet, in order. She keeps on, street after street,to the tiresome end: good reader; speller, better.Knows q needs u. Knows the rule that one parentlives miles from the other, an alphabet to range.The grandmother and the actual grandfather cometogether. The grandmother’s brought gifts: a senseof continuity, of love. She’s carsick. It’s strange,she thinks. Happiness is not a direct sum.
Here's Joie, We were looking for turtles.
Someone asked, “What does that mean, “Happiness is not a direct sum”? How could I exactly say? It’s all so strange, this life in which the father’s somewhere else, the grandmother’s not a “real” one. There is a “real” one—so what am I? I guess that’s what I meant: we do what we do. We can no longer, if we ever could, add up the exact way relationships are supposed to go.
I can’t say how this all went. It was definitely most successful with the oldest children. But I figure, each child got to hear me read a poem about his or her very own self. They got to have a copy of the book. And if the words didn’t make sense, the sound may imbed itself, and years later, this poem and the others might possibly carry its weight and loving attention into whatever present there is at the time.
Speaking of the present, I feel better all the time. I’m walking two miles some days, and swimming my old usual route to the yellow raft and back, but not as often as I used to. I get cold very easily. I wear more clothes than anyone. I’ve achieved my professed summer goal—been out on my paddleboard. Wearing a Speedo cap, not the silly cancer swim cap I ordered.
I’m cranking up for fall: I have two students to work with this year in the low-residency MFA program I teach in (Rainier Writing Workshop). It’s a light load—students who are at a stage that requires fewer mailings. I’ve also made hotel reservations for the Associated Writing Program’s conference in Seattle in late February. No plane reservations yet—I still might decide not to go. (My book comes out this year, and so I should be there.) There are other trips we will want to take. Frankly, I’m a bit scared of all that. I still feel too tired. So none if it may happen. And Jerry may have back surgery. We’ll know something about that in Sept.
I can now pinch a little hair between my fingers. There’s a widow’s peak of dark on top, with white at the sides. A lot of white. All earned.