The Author to Her Book - Anne Bradstreet

If this poem is about what I think it's about, then I really wish I was the one who had written it. It speaks to me, even if I'm not a writer of books, but generally a writer of sorts. I always feel like my work isn't good enough...that as an English major my writing should be grade-A material. I'm always beating myself up, even when I get criticized for things that I wrote, which I still thought were good. Anne Bradstreet in this poem makes it seem okay for writing to be wrong at times...for mistakes or writer's block.

I love how the poem is just one huge metaphor for having a child. I'm sure this is how some parents feel when what their child projects upon others, isn't the way the parent had envisioned or tried so hard to make it be. The methaphors within this one huge metaphor are amazing too...especially the ones where she's trying to make the piece better by fixing little things here and there. I almost feel sorry for the piece when after it gets rejected by the critics, she pushes it aside and disowns it for a minute. Now whenever I'll write something that is so horribly bad andI nonchalantly start to delete it, I'll definitely think twice about it. Because if you think about it, you spent a part of your life writing whatever it is you were writing, nurturing it, taking care of it, getting to know it, and to just suddenly throw it all away? It seems so cruel and cold to do.

Either way, I'm in love with this poem. I think I'm going to print it out and hang it up somewhere.