{"id":26688,"date":"2014-09-02T06:30:49","date_gmt":"2014-09-01T18:30:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=26688"},"modified":"2014-08-31T21:49:37","modified_gmt":"2014-08-31T09:49:37","slug":"the-tuesday-poem-the-author-to-her-book-by-anne-bradstreet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2014\/09\/02\/the-tuesday-poem-the-author-to-her-book-by-anne-bradstreet\/","title":{"rendered":"The Tuesday Poem: “The Author to her Book” by Anne Bradstreet"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Author to her Book<\/strong><\/p>\n

Thou ill-formed offspring of my feeble brain,
\nWho after birth didst by my side remain,
\nTill snatched from thence by friends, less wise than true,
\nWho thee abroad, exposed to public view,
\nMade thee in rags, halting to th\u2019 press to trudge,
\nWhere errors were not lessened (all may judge).
\nAt thy return my blushing was not small,
\nMy rambling brat (in print) should mother call,
\nI cast thee by as one unfit for light,
\nThe visage was so irksome in my sight;
\nYet being mine own, at length affection would
\nThy blemishes amend, if so I could.
\nI washed thy face, but more defects I saw,
\nAnd rubbing off a spot still made a flaw.
\nI stretched thy joints to make thee even feet,
\nYet still thou run\u2019st more hobbling than is meet;
\nIn better dress to trim thee was my mind,
\nBut nought save homespun cloth i\u2019 th\u2019 house I find.
\nIn this array \u2018mongst vulgars may\u2019st thou roam.
\nIn critic\u2019s hands beware thou dost not come,
\nAnd take thy way where yet thou art not known;
\nIf for thy father asked, say thou hadst none;
\nAnd for thy mother, she alas is poor,
\nWhich caused her thus to send thee out of door.<\/p>\n

by Anne Bradstreet, 1612-1672<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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<\/a> 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.”<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

\"TuesPoem\"<\/a>To check out the featured poem on the Tuesday Poem Hub<\/strong> and other great poems from fellow Tuesday poets from around the world, click here<\/strong><\/a> or on the Quill<\/strong> icon <\/strong>in the sidebar.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u2019 press to trudge, Where errors were not lessened (all may judge). […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26688"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26688\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26690,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26688\/revisions\/26690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}