Notes from the Delivery Room
December 5, 2010
My husband and I listen to the Writer’s Almanac every day. Before we hear the day’s poem, I tend to joke about whether the featured piece will be another doom-and-gloomer, but my husband reminded me that Garrison Keillor can show his sense of humor in his selections, and I conceded that my husband was right.
Today’s poem wittily dwells in the quotidian, and I liked its ending especially. In Linda Pastan‘s Notes from the Delivery Room*, a woman is giving birth and experiencing both the physical and mental pressures of impending motherhood. When the moment arrives, she calms and thinks:
She’s crowning, someone says,
but there is no one royal here,
just me, quite barefoot,
greeting my barefoot child.
The clever pun, the mother’s lack of pretension, and her wry acceptance of her child–all create a great moment. Something universal is made personal, and it isn’t overblown or overly politicized, so we get a good sense of the mother’s character from this one intense moment.
*Excerpted from Carnival Evening
June 18, 2011 at 11:50 AM
[...] I’ve written before about how Garrison Keillor‘s poem selections for The Writer’s Almanac tend toward the melancholic. Well, he finally got me. I love animals, especially cats. I have two at home. Today’s poem centered on a cat, and by the time the poem reached its heartbreaking end I was crying. If you’re brave enough to read it, click here to read Gray excerpted from How Men Pray by Philip F. Deaver. Am I sharing tears the way someone shares food that tastes bad? Maybe! Posted in cats, poetry | Tagged animals, cat, cats, crying, Garrison Keillor, Gray, How Men Pray, melancholic, Philip F. Deaver, poem, poet, poetry, tears, The Writer's Almanac | Leave a Comment » LikeBe the first to like this post. [...]