The Author to her Book

Thou ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain,
Who after birth didst by my side remain,
Till snatched from thence by friends, less wise than true,
Who thee abroad, exposed to public view,
Made thee in rags, halting to th’ press to trudge,
Where errors were not lessened (all may judge).
At thy return my blushing was not small,
My rambling brat (in print) should mother call,
I cast thee by as one unfit for light,
The visage was so irksome in my sight;
Yet being mine own, at length affection would
Thy blemishes amend, if so I could.
I washed thy face, but more defects I saw,
And rubbing off a spot still made a flaw.
I stretched thy joints to make thee even feet,
Yet still thou run’st more hobbling than is meet;
In better dress to trim thee was my mind,
But nought save homespun cloth i’ th’ house I find.
In this array ‘mongst vulgars may’st thou roam.
In critic’s hands beware thou dost not come,
And take thy way where yet thou art not known;
If for thy father asked, say thou hadst none;
And for thy mother, she alas is poor,
Which caused her thus to send thee out of door.

by Anne Bradstreet, 1612-1672

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Following on from the WORD Christchurch Writers and Readers’ festival where poetry took an upfront place, featuring this poem felt very apt — not least becasue I suspect the sentiment “speaks” as much to authors in 2014 as it did to Anne Bradstreet in the 17th century.

Anne Bradstreet was one of the early Puritan settlers of the American colonies and believed to be the first poet published in the early settlements. Although www.poets.org describes her early work as “imitative and conventional” apparently her later work (much of which was not published until the mid-nineteenth century) “won critical acceptance in the twentieth century.”

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