{"id":15446,"date":"2012-05-12T20:54:35","date_gmt":"2012-05-13T03:54:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=15446"},"modified":"2012-05-12T20:54:35","modified_gmt":"2012-05-13T03:54:35","slug":"the-good-men-project-publishes-for-my-son-a-kind-of-prayer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=15446","title":{"rendered":"The Good Men Project Publishes “For My Son, A Kind of Prayer”"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am really happy that The Good Men Project has chosen to publish a new of poem of mine called “For My Son, A Kind of Prayer.”<\/a> Too often, I think sites like that ignore the potential for poetry to speak truth to<\/em> the cultural conversations we have about all kinds of issues, in this case gender, sexual violence, heterosexual male privilege and other related issues. At least I hope that’s what this poem does. Here’s the beginning–and please be aware that the poem does contain graphic descriptions of sexual violence against both men and women:<\/p>\n

Just before his mother
\npushed him through herself
\nhard enough to split who she was
\nwide enough for him to enter the world,
\nI touched the top of my son\u2019s head;
\nand after he was born,
\nthe midwife\u2014her name,
\nI think, was Vivian\u2014
\nheld my wife\u2019s umbilical cord
\nin a loop for me to cut, which I did,
\nfreeing our new boy\u2019s body
\nto enter the name
\nwe had waiting for him;
\nand then Vivian laid him
\nagainst the curve of his mother\u2019s body,
\ngiving him to the breast
\nhe would for years
\ndefine his world by;
\nand once that first taste of love
\nwas firmly lodged within him,
\nshe bundled him tight,
\nplaced him in my arms
\nand, while I sang his welcome
\nin a far corner of the room,
\nturned to assist the doctor
\nsewing up my wife\u2019s
\nbirth-torn flesh.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am really happy that The Good Men Project has chosen to publish a new of poem of mine called “For My Son, A Kind of Prayer.” Too often, I think sites like that ignore the potential for poetry to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55,96],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-men-and-masculinity","category-rape-intimate-violence-related-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15446"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15446\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15447,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15446\/revisions\/15447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}