Tupelo 19/30: Advice for My Daughter's Father

Dear Reader, 

This Father's Day I send my love to my dad Big Mike DiGiorgio and to my husband AJ Wolf, who is parenting solo on his holiday while I'm holed up in a pond view cabin in Tennessee. My dear partner is earning his good father & better husband badge!

A version of my own father appeared in yesterday's poem, and when I sat down to write some ode to fatherhood for today, it kept coming out as a question or request: Can you be this kind of dad? 

Though my daughter is only three-years-old, already I can see the many ways she is like me (good grief, she rivals my chattiness), and despite my best efforts, she's absorbed some gendered attitudes/behaviors that unfortunately seem to belittle or diminish "being a girl." 

I don't want to limit her to a binary. I want her to have choice and say and feel empowered and safe. This poem is as much a letter to her father as it is to all men with whom she will have contact. 

Here is an excerpt from "Advice for My Daughter's Father" (read the full poem on Tupelo Press' 30/30 blog): 

"...She’ll be the most

painful kind of fearless, an ant who can carry

a hundred times her weight in heft and grief.

Yes, I’m guilty of having modeled this,

so we cannot be sure if it’s nature or what

I’ve nurtured. She’ll want to be a princess

even if she denies it because she’s royalty,

as all children are. She’ll also want to be a boy

because in the books they hunt the rabbit,

and she feels like the rabbit...."

Readers, thank you for continued support. 

There are eleven days left in the month! Eleven days! 

I now have THREE remaining titles available. If you would like to claim one of these, please see my first posting for incentive amounts and make your way to the Tupelo Press donation page. Be sure to select my name from the scroll down tab titled "Is this donation in honor of a 30/30 poet?" After you've donated, be sure to email (edigiorgio@gmail.com) or Facebook message me your requests.

Of course, once I am out of titles, you can still select five words for a poem, give me a potential theme/topic, offer a formal challenge, or receive a chapbook at the end of this project. And if you're enjoyed reading poetry this month, you might consider a subscription to Tupelo. You'll receive 9 books for $99, which is a steal! You can also *gift* this subscription to someone else (including me!)...I have friends and students who would be delighted to be the recipient. 

Yours in poetry,

Emari