Last week, our son heard me publicly read my poems for the first time. Alongside Finishing Line Press poets Dorothy Bendel, David Ebenbach, and Pia Taavila-Borsheim, I stood at the front of a room in the Georgetown Neighborhood Library and recited poems. Seeing him in the audience was just delightful.
Knowing that this would be our son's first poetry reading, I chose my reading selection carefully. While I write a lot about grief and mourning, I wanted to read more celebratory poems, which meant a lot of poems about him. (Yes, my poems have changed greatly; that's for another post.) Of course, he's only a little over ten months old and can't understand the words, but he can understand tone.
My husband was holding our son in the back of the room and when I first started talking, our son turned his head towards me, made an O with his mouth and started to (vaguely) point and coo towards me. He seemed very surprised. I couldn't help but smile; it was all I could do not to run to the back of the room to snuggle with him. After a few moments, my husband took our son into the hallway outside the room so he could crawl, make noise, but still hear me.
I was proud of our son and look forward to taking him to many more readings. Perhaps the Dodge Poetry Festival this fall?
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