SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
When poet Emily Bright had her first child, she wanted to capture the experience and the changes that come with motherhood. So when her baby slept, Bright would steal away and write down whatever inspired her. The result is a new book of poetry called "Fierce Delight." It paints a vivid picture of the early stages of motherhood while also including aspects of Bright's life that extend beyond the label of mother.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
EMILY BRIGHT: My name is Emily Bright. I am a writer and a radio producer living in St. Paul, Minnesota. I have been writing poetry my whole life. I think poetry is particularly useful during times that feel very rich or very intense. I've always had this drive to put it into words in some way. And so I was writing poems throughout my first pregnancy and throughout the first, I'd say, three years of my daughter's life, and a few of the poems were written with this knowledge that something is going - everything is going to change. There will be a complete recentering of my life in a way I won't be able to understand till I'm there, but we're on the cusp of it, and we're balanced on that cusp of it for quite a long period of time, nine months where you get to imagine but you're not in it yet. And so I think that period of waiting and imagining can be a very rich creative time.
I'd like to read the first poem in the collection. It's called "Pairs, And Soon A Threesome."
(Reading) Summer, and the trees are luscious. We stroll, eyes closed to better smell the cedar. For once, I am not forming words. A bear cub lopes onto the road like a dog but hardier, carefree. Then ducks back toward mama in the trees. You trace my belly with your palms while baby spins inside me. You can't tell yet, but she loves your touch. Canoeing on the lake reveals half a dozen eagles. They mate for life, you say. One surveys. Its partner tucks against the pine. In the ultrasound, we saw her face, ghost imprint of our dreams. My heartbeat is her anchor. She was playing with her feet. We wear bright colors while the sun lasts, take our dinners in the breeze. Wonder, sweet as this - you have to cup it in both hands.
The collection is broken into two sections. The first section is, And Suddenly I Was A Mother, and the second is, And Still i Was Myself. Often when we have children, especially for mothers, somehow we get reduced down to the person who changes diapers and wipes up spills. And so it was also important to me to include poems about the other aspects of being a person, of also being a wife and a daughter and an intelligent person with interests and career aspirations. And there's also a great deal of the joy and the comfort of nature because that's something that just continuously brings me joy.
Here's a poem called "Midnight Kayaking."
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
BRIGHT: (Reading) How many lights in blackness? Jupiter has set. The Milky Way winds clear as any road, bioluminescent streams out from my bough, eddies with each paddle dip. I scan for your brief lighted trail, find you almost close enough to touch. We are skimming on the surface of a thousand interactions - a lobster trapped, a cormorant spreads its feathers wide and drying in the dark, a supernova ruptures millions of years off, and yes, I have always been afraid of sharks and sudden accidents. I would not have come tonight, except you shouldered your kayak down the beach and paused at the silent edge of water. Down the bay, the seals broiled (ph), grumbling like stomachs. I keep having to remember how much is alive, how we are alive inside it. I paddle to you, and we sit, night blinded, kayaks linked, while the ocean carries us like driftwood down the bay.
When I realized that I was putting together a collection, I was thoughtful of which notes need to be in here because nobody wants to hear about just the wonderful things because that's not true. So I also wanted to allow in the parts that are messy, the parts where we are tired, where we are frustrated. Nothing good happens at 3 in the morning, you know? I write about miscarriage because it is so common and so not talked about. And so if poems in this collection make people feel seen, what a gift. That's - I really hope that people read this collection and feel seen.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.