[Maryann Corbett]

On account of the happy announcement by Peter Chipman down here on General Talk, I'm starting a thread for baby poems.

To start us, here's a link to A.E. Stallings's "Lullaby for a Colicky Baby."

And if there's an older thread on this subject I didn't find, do please point me to it.

[Ed Shacklee]

I'm glad you started this, Maryann. Since I read your 'Circadian Lament, Sung to a Wakeful Baby' -- which I won't include here, only because it seem to be a work in progress -- I'd been thinking about how few baby poems have actually stayed with me, as that one has. I hope my fellow Eratospherians can remedy that.

I do like Auden's 'Munds et Infans,' but it's not the sort of thing you can rattle off (no pun intended) -- well, at least I can't.

Thanks for the poem by A.E. Stallings.

Best,

Ed

[John Whitworth]

How young does a child have to be to be a baby? Are they babies until they are one? In which case I have written baby poems myself. When they just lie about - or in the case of our daughter, lie about and scream the place down, they are not very conducive to the Muse. But if they can DO stuff....

[Mary Meriam]

Maryann, you workshopped a poem a while ago - not this current one - do you remember which one I'm thinking of?

[Roger Slater]

Here's a throwaway that I didn't throw away, but this is D&A so here goes:

STRAINING CREDULITY

Your three-month-old knows how to walk?
I'll take you at your word.
What's that? The little guy can talk?
I won't say that's absurd.

After all, his father's you
and you're the perfect sire.
What's that? He sleeps the whole night through?
That does it. You're a liar!

[Maryann Corbett]

Roger, I love it.

Mary, I think you might mean "Security." That makes me think a bit: many "baby" poems are more properly "mother" poems.

I'm trying to hunt down specimens I think I remember by Geoff Brock, Anne Stevenson, and, of all people, Sylvia Plath.

John, by all means let's see the poem.

[David Anthony]

The children other folk beget
Are dreadful little bores.
I think that I have never yet
Seen any worse than yours.
But take a look at our sweet Miss:
She's one of Nature's flowers.
So leave your baby out of this
And concentrate on ours.

--Anon

[Maryann Corbett]

Too true, David.

Here's the Brock poem--found nearby! It's "Lauds." Scroll way down past the photos.

[Julie Steiner]

I'm partial to the mer-creature in this other poem by Alicia:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/arch...html?id=181166

(And he didn't get a brother. He got a sister!)

[Maryann Corbett]

Julie, thanks for reminding me of that one. And that one reminds me of another kid-in-the-bed poem. The kid is older than a baby, but the love is the same.

Galway Kinnell's "After Making Love We Hear Footsteps"