In 22 poems, Emily Patterson watches her daughter grow
I’ve been a father for 45 years, and if I’ve learned anything, it’s that you never stop being a parent. How you parent changes, of course, from a child’s total dependence upon you to increasing independence and ultimately becoming their own person. But, as a parent, you’re always navigating parenthood.
Emily Patterson began learning this lesson early with the birth of her daughter during the pandemic lockdown year of 2020. She reflects on the first two years of her child’s life in So Much Tending Remains, a collection of 22 poems covering the period from birth to toddlerhood.
Patterson learns the wonders of those first few minutes of life, when “you chirped / and bobbed your downy head / as my hands learned to hold you …” She recognizes her baby’s cry (“I was struck by its smallness”). She experiences those early months, when she’d often forget to eat and wonder about the changes in her own body.
And, accompanied by her new companion for life, she’d go out to pick apples.
When You Were Nine Weeks Old
Early autumn, we emerge
from our shared sleep haze,
drive Ohio backroads
to the orchard for Galas,
delicata, dough doused
in sugar so thick it sticks
to our teeth. We pick apples,
palm-sized and sun-warmed,
wandering the rows until
all we see is September sky,
a choir of trees, and each
other: a specific universe,
both familiar and new,
briefly ours alone.
It’s not all idyllic. Patterson describes the nights when the baby won’t sleep, and they take long walks. She notes how a toddler’s repetitive pounding of a toy piano key can drive one crazy. And she watches her child begin to develop the sense of independence and being her own person. And that’s indeed what a central feature of parenthood is about — rearing a child to independence.
Emily Patterson
She writes in a simple and powerful way. Her meaning is clear and unmistakable. She writes in a declarative style that makes her poems inviting to read and join in.
Patterson has published two other collections, To Bend and to Braid (2023) and Haiku at 5:38 a.m. (2024). Her work has been published by numerous literary journals and magazines, including Rust & Moth, Whale Road Review, North American Review, CALYX, and many others. She received a B.A. in English from Ohio Wesleyan University and an M.A. in Education from Ohio State University. She lives in Columbus, Ohio.
It’s a short and beautiful collection, perhaps mirroring just how short the childhood of our children actually is. The title itself, So Much Tending Remains, reflects Patterson’s understanding of parenthood, and 40 years from now she’ll know exactly how true that title is — and remains.
Related:
Poets and Poems: Emily Patterson and Haiku at 5:38 a.m.
Thin Starlight: Interview with Emily Jean Patterson
Photo by Jason Parrish, Creative Commons, via Flickr. Post by Glynn Young.
How to Read a Poem uses images like the mouse, the hive, the switch (from the Billy Collins poem)—to guide readers into new ways of understanding poems. Anthology included.
“I require all our incoming poetry students—in the MFA I direct—to buy and read this book.”
—Jeanetta Calhoun Mish
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