'You can't call a little lad sweetheart'
(Something I didn't expect to write)
Something weird happened to me last week. I’d taken Monday off, with Dan. And while I was supposed to be doing nothing (actually, I’m a bit embarrassed to say, I was in the middle of getting a facial) I had an idea for a poem.
It just sort of landed in my brain.
This, I should clarify, never happens to me. Sure, sometimes I walk around composing essays for this newsletter in my head – or with an idle idea for a book or an Instagram reel prodding at me. Sometimes a line of dialogue for the novel I’m writing wanders on in. But a poem? I don’t do that sort of writing. Do I?
(Truthfully, even now, I’m wondering if there are lots of rules I don’t know about that mean my idea doesn’t even count as a poem.)
But it wouldn’t leave me alone. So I wrote it. In the Notes app on my phone. I fiddled around with it for the next day or so, thinking I might post it on Instagram…Then I completely lost my nerve to share it.
Which is all to say, I’m posting it here, as a bit of an experiment. Among friends. In the hope that if you like my other writing, you might also like this. Or at least not be totally embarrassed for me.
New subscribers (welcome! 👋), this is very much not the norm for this newsletter – in case you’re wondering what on earth you signed up for – there will be an essay next week about whether ‘taboo’ is the right lens through which to think about pregnancy loss any more, followed by a fertility news round-up the week after that. (But if you are after poetry, can I direct you towards
who writes , combining poetry with reflections on IVF, miscarriage, matrescence, and other ‘in-betweens’).But, for now, here goes nothing:
Thank you for reading. If you like it, let me know. And if you hate it or are mortified for me, then let’s pretend this never happened and move on with our lives!
Until next week,
Love this Jennie, especially the final line, "why wouldn't we want boys to grow with honey in their hearts?". It makes me think of Ruth Whippman's book, Boy Mum. Have you read it? I may even have first heard about it in one of your newsletters. I think we all need to focus a lot more time and attention on growing boys with honey in their hearts alongside empowering girls.
Thanks so much for sharing your poem. It takes so much courage to step out of your comfort zone like this.
I liked your poem! I tend to be more of a prose writer and remember having to write poetry in high school and not loving it. But I did write a 10 Things I Hate About You poem that rhymed after this guy I dated for literally a month the summer after my senior year of college dumped me after spending a good month pursuing me just to get me to be his girlfriend (this was summer of 2010). He dumped me for a girl he met in band who also played the clarinet like I did (but I was completely done with band since I had graduated and this girl was 18). I just found it in my gmail and here is an excerpt:
“I hate how all I can think about is how you said I was beautiful, smart, and great,
but yet you don't want to be with me.
I hate that I was so wrong about you;
it actually makes me feel worse times three.
I hate your weirdly tiny teeth;
they really creep me out.
I hate that you spent so much time with me
then didn't even tell me what the break-up was really about. “
I only share this because it made me laugh to think about the kind of writing I did at age 22 when I was feeling the need to rant which really differs from my rants in my journal here at age 36. I honestly don’t know what happened to my ex boyfriend- I think he moved to California maybe? I didn’t delete him off of social media, but he deleted me after we hadn’t talked in a few years at all. My husband and I met in September of 2011, and we’ve been married since August of 2013, so I haven’t really had much need to worry about my ex. I do like telling that story to coworkers though- they get very offended on my behalf that he dumped me and immediately got a new girlfriend without telling me that he was interested in someone else.