The poet said fuck on stage. It doesn’t sound like anything extraordinary and nor would it have been, but for the context and the fact that her mother sat in the front row. I admit I looked over to the poet’s mother when I heard the resounding, almost yelling of ‘fuck’ on stage, and she didn’t really react. Not that I’d met her before so it would be hard for me to know. Even as I realised the mother didn’t react, I was aware that perhaps she felt so self-conscious that she was using all her energy to indeed appear to not react.
Then the poet said masturbate.
It wasn’t said with the gusto she’d said fuck, nor the clarity, but rather a touch of speed and an almost-muffle, but it was there. I heard it, others heard it, and I imagine her mother heard it.
Again, her mother failed to respond.
I know it sounds odd that I’m surprised she didn’t react, or more that I’m surprised the poet said fuck and masturbate on stage when she knew her mum was there. Even I’m a little surprised I’m surprised.
On the same stage almost two years beforehand, my own mother sat near the front as I performed my first featured poetry set, and I said fuck too. More than once.
Fuck is a word my brothers and I got into trouble for saying when we were kids. Mum used to say shit all the time and I said it once when I was starting high school. Mum wasn’t impressed and before she dished out consequences I reminded her that she said shit all the time and asked how she could expect us not to. I didn’t get into trouble that day, nor any other time I said shit.
But Mum never said fuck and it seemed, even by my own argument, fuck was off limits.
When I was planning my poetry set I knew I was going to say fuck in front of her. Of course, as an adult, I had no disillusions of any consequences, although I didn’t want to make my mum feel uncomfortable, or myself, for that matter.
When I got to the bit where I had to say fuck I chose not to look in her direction. Same the next time I had to say fuck. I tried not to imagine her reeling a little, perhaps sitting up straight all of a sudden and wondering whether she worried that people were staring at her. Though I suspect, unlike the other poet’s mother, my own did reel a little, whether or not it was because I said fuck or whether it was the context in which I said it. Though I didn’t say masturbate in front of her, nor do I think I would. (Although I realise it’s to say this when that word does not feature in any of my own poems. To date.)
Even considering this and knowing I would again say fuck in front of my mother for the sake of poetry, it still surprises me that this poet did it.
Perhaps it’s some crazy double standard, or maybe it has something to do with me having a good understanding of my own relationship with my mother and knowing nothing about this poet’s with hers. Maybe it has something to do with the age gap between the poet and myself, which makes me almost old enough to be her mother. Though really, I suspect it has more to do with context.
By that I don’t mean that I said fuck in the middle of a humorous piece about being in labour while this poet said it in a more, let’s say, aggressive, piece that suggested she less than loves her life, or more specifically, one aspect of it. Although that does have something to do with it.
I don’t remember the context of her saying masturbate, other than, as I’ve already suggested, it seemed rushed, like she was aware her mother was listening and hoped she could somehow disguise it so her mother mightn’t notice. Maybe she didn’t feel comfortable saying it at all.
I do recall the context of the poet’s message though, the thing the poet, through the various poems she delivered as part of her featured set, was trying to say. She hates being a parent.
No two ways about it, considering the context of her overall performance, I have no doubt the poet hates, more than anything else on this earth, the responsibility that comes with caring for a dependent child.
At least she did when she wrote the poems.
A poem that involved no swearing was perhaps the most disturbing she delivered. It was the kind of poem that, as I listened, I wondered what would happen in the future, when her toddler grew up, could read, could ask questions like, ‘Why did you hate me so much, Mummy?’, ‘Why didn’t you want to play with me, Mummy?’ and ‘Did having me really ruin your life Mummy?’
Because this poet is angry. Angry about being a mum, angry about being responsible for a dependent child, angry about not getting enough time to herself to be herself, angry about her marriage breaking up, angry that her life isn’t what she hoped it would be. Angry that she was tricked into the responsibility of being a parent when she had a completely, albeit naive, expectation of what it might be like. Angry with society’s attitudes toward mothers.
I feel for her. I’ve been her. I feel the pain she’s suffering. I feel the pain her daughter may suffer in the future. I feel for her mother who sat and listened to her daughter’s pain, unable to do a damned thing but sit still and listen.
I understand where the poet is coming from, the things she feels right now, the desperate need to break out of it, at all costs. I’ve been there, although not so publicly. I felt ashamed of such thoughts, struggled to come to terms with them in the safety of my lounge room instead of belting them down a microphone in a dimly lit suburban pub. On one hand, I admire her for being brave enough to say some of the things I wasn’t, even though I’m all for getting the messages out there. I mean, half the reason she feels like this to start with is because talking about the things she’s expressing are taboo, but that’s a separate issue.
I think her poems are important. I agree the world needs to know what it can be like for new parents, how it can be difficult to adapt to new responsibilities, particularly when, as she pointed out in one of her poems, you become invisible to the rest of the world when you have a baby. But I’m not yet decided whether she’s brave, or whether she just needs some help. Even if she doesn’t need help, perhaps her poems will show others that many new mothers do. And that they often don’t know how to get it. I look forward to the poems she’ll write next.
I hope she’ll write some that offer the right balance to give these dark ones the strength the message in them deserves. The kind of poems that show the light side of parenting, that show she learned something valuable from this dark place she’s in.
While I could argue that other poets write about the happy times and this poet’s experience provides the balance, I can’t help but feel that without her providing a balance herself, the audience, instead of hearing her message, will just think of her as the poet that said fuck on stage. And masturbate.