Clearly, it’s been some time since I’ve posted an update here. I do have a good excuse, and he’s napping in his crib in the next room. This has been something of a transformative year. Of all the changes parenthood has brought to my life, perhaps the most surprising is (wait for it) a Twitter handle. I know. I wouldn’t have anticipated it either, but life’s kind of like that. One day you’re in labour for 20 hours, and nine months later, you’ve sent your first tweet.
Which is to say, I’ve begun a new little poetry project, inspired by my current circumstance. “Hoems” will be poems about home, short pieces that explore the shocks of insight that come from child-rearing, housekeeping, and all things domestic. (If you wanted to write poems about ho’s, you should have gotten there first.)
I would love to write a complete ars poetica for these poems, but part of the idea behind this project is that doing is more important than arsing. I will say, though, that this endeavor grew from a stubborn seed planted by this piece in The Believer (which you really must read); Anne Marie Slaughter’s much discussed article in The Atlantic; and this tiny poem by Joe Brainard, sent to me by a friend:
Poem
Sometimes
everything
seems
so
oh, I don’t know.
These three pieces have been rattling around in my sleep-deprived brain for a few months now, urging me to do something. So I’m doing something. I’m combining my poet self and my homemaker self and becoming a third thing, a @hoemmaker. Follow me on Twitter if you’re into that kind of thing, and if you have a hoem of your own to share, I invite you to use the hashtag #hoem.
ABBY PAIGE 