The Friday Poem on 30/12/22
We chose ‘Puggy Baby’ by Rowan Bell to be our Friday Poem this week because it is so on-the-nail, so heartbreakingly sad while also laugh-out-loud funny. The ditsy effusiveness of the speaker is entirely at odds with what is actually being said, and our sympathies are emphatically with Daddy. It’s the specificity of some of her suggestions — the Tavistock Square memorial, the hire car bumper — that makes us smile but also grounds the poem firmly in reality. The term ‘puggy’ is new to us and is one which we have adopted with relish. It’s joyful to read a ‘persona’ poem so neatly done, and we applaud it loudly!
Puggy Baby
Dear Daddy, I love you so much
but I don’t want you to come
to my pre-wedding party. You’ll be
there at the lunch, so you mustn’t be glum.
You can go home on the train
and spend a few moments alone
in Tavistock Square with the memorial
for conscientious objectors.
Dear Daddy, I love you so much
but no, you can’t stay at
Steve’s parent’s place in France.
The guest room is full of someone else.
You can be in a farmhouse
twenty kilometres away, and knock
the bumper off your hire car
meeting a tractor on the lane.
Dear Daddy, I love you so much
but I can’t spend Christmas or
my birthday with you. We can get together
if you like, sometime soon.
You can open presents
not on the actual day, and we can
talk on the telephone later
in the morning, or perhaps in the afternoon.
Dear Daddy, I love you so much
I can’t wait for you meet my new baby
but I’m in quarantine with mummy
and seeing my girlfriends in York.
You can have a cuddle when he is
all puggy from other people’s embraces.
Please don’t feel grim, because he’s innocent,
and doesn’t know who’s holding him.
