Hello booklovers,
Today on Mothering Sunday, I give you some thoughts on a poem by Sylvia Plath, an exciting new anthology of poems from author Ana Sampson (who will be featuring as a guest at Fbf’s 2021 online festival) and some musings on a feathered friend…
Whilst out on my daily stroll a few days ago I spotted one of my favourite sights to see at this time of year. A duck, plodding along, followed by an entourage of baby ducklings. She looked exhausted, frazzled, like part of her just wanted to take off and leave the chaos of her squabbling brood behind and nestle down for some alone time. She didn’t though, as they continued on their way. Rather, she quacked firmly at some onlookers who were getting a little too close for her liking, and led her reluctant followers brimming with the energy of new life, towards safety. On witnessing a moment like this, I am reminded of the sheer strength it takes to be a mother. Not that I know exactly what it is or where it can be found. But as a daughter I have bared witness to it all my life and continue to do so.
In her new collection Night Feeds and Morning Songs, anthologist Ana Sampson brings together poems old and new which capture both the beautiful and the brutal aspects of motherhood. Featuring poems by Carol Ann Duffy, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Jackie Kay and Sylvia Plath, Sampson also features the bold voices of new poets Kate Baer, Liz Berry, Nikita Gill and Imogen Russell Williams. These poems are intimate observations, honest and raw, offering us individual accounts of what it is and means to be a mother. We are thrilled to be welcoming Ana Sampson to this year’s online festival. Ana will be discussing her new anthology Night Feeds and Morning Songs with writer Polly Clark, in a live streamed event on the 26th of June at 12pm. For more information about the event, please see the programme of events taking place as part of the 2021 festival on our website.
Sylvia Plath’s poem Morning Song was written in February 1961, after the birth of her daughter Frieda. Plath confronts the feelings that come with the first few hours of motherhood, the adjustment to a role which although completely natural feels strange and isolating. Perhaps it is too often assumed that a woman will instinctively know how and what to feel after giving birth to a baby they have been carrying inside them. It is expected that maternal love will outweigh any other emotion. And although this is of course mostly the case, the difficulty of adjusting to the responsibility of caring for a child, is an immensely overwhelming one, which Plath captures through a series of beautiful metaphors.
Morning Song
Love set you going like a fat gold watch.
The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry
Took its place among the elements.
Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New statue.
In a drafty museum, your nakedness
Shadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls.
I’m no more your mother
Than the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its own slow
Effacement at the wind’s hand.
All night your moth-breath
Flickers among the flat pink roses. I wake to listen:
A far sea moves in my ear.
One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral
In my Victorian nightgown.
Your mouth opens clean as a cat’s. The window square
Whitens and swallows its dull stars. And now you try
Your handful of notes;
The clear vowels rise like balloons.
Of course, Mothering Sunday is a day to celebrate motherhood in all its varied and important forms. A ‘mother’ is someone who provides guidance, love, kindness, fun, wisdom, a shoulder to cry on, adoration, honesty. It might be that we weren’t lucky enough to get to know them at all. It might be that they’re no longer with us. Or that they’re not necessarily the person who birthed us. But their importance and significance in our lives remains the same nonetheless. I am not sure whether ducks remain emotionally attached to their mothers once they have left the nest. That is where humans differ I suppose. Relationships are inevitably complicated, hugely dependent on circumstance, and flecked with years and years of damages and repairs. But the connection between mother and child is a bond unlike many others. And it should not just be acknowledged on one day a year. But seeing as there is a date set aside for it in the calendar, a bunch of flowers probably won’t go a miss. I’m not sure ducks view it that sentimentally though?
Bookish best,
Elizabeth x
Morning Song
Love set you going like a fat gold watch.
The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry
Took its place among the elements.
Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New statue.
In a drafty museum, your nakedness
Shadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls.
I’m no more your mother
Than the cloud that distills a mirror to reflect its own slow
Effacement at the wind’s hand.
All night your moth-breath
Flickers among the flat pink roses. I wake to listen:
A far sea moves in my ear.
One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral
In my Victorian nightgown.
Your mouth opens clean as a cat’s. The window square
Whitens and swallows its dull stars. And now you try
Your handful of notes;
The clear vowels rise like balloons.
Of course, Mothering Sunday is a day to celebrate motherhood in all its varied and important forms. A ‘mother’ is someone who provides guidance, love, kindness, fun, wisdom, a shoulder to cry on, adoration, honesty. It might be that we weren’t lucky enough to get to know them at all. It might be that they’re no longer with us. Or that they’re not necessarily the person who birthed us. But their importance and significance in our lives remains the same nonetheless. I am not sure whether ducks remain emotionally attached to their mothers once they have left the nest. That is where humans differ I suppose. Relationships are inevitably complicated, hugely dependent on circumstance, and flecked with years and years of damages and repairs. But the connection between mother and child is a bond unlike many others. And it should not just be acknowledged on one day a year. But seeing as there is a date set aside for it in the calendar, a bunch of flowers probably won’t go a miss. I’m not sure ducks view it that sentimentally though