poems for a welcoming ceremony

[elliott]

I'm a bit stuck coming up with ideas for a couple of readings for a welcoming ceremony for ds2. For ds1 we had the bit about children from 'the prophet', and a poem by Sylvia Plath about the birth of her son. I've found a few poems I like but none seem completely 'suitable' for the occasion....
Any ideas welcome - something that celebrates childhood would be lovely, it would also be great if I could find something about brothers/siblings/families.....

elliott, I suspect if you like Plath this website may make you feel a bit sick, but you never know, it could help ... soppy stuff

It does have Dorothy Aldis's poem for a very new baby, which I secretly quite like:

I am the sister of him
and he is my brother.
He is too little for us
To talk to each other.
So every morning I show him
My doll and my book;
but every morning he still is
Too little to look.

binkie, I'm an old softy, that brought tears to my eyes (especially since ds1 is always showing ds2 toys and books!)

well, me too I admit. So as we may like the same sort of things, I'll have a further think.

for ds naming ceremony my dad read 'meditation on a childs upbringing,

if a child lives with criticism he learns to condemn;
if a child lives with hostility he learns how to fight;
if a child lives with ridicule he learns to be shy;
if a child lives with shame he learns to feel guilty.

if a child lives with tolerance he learns to be patient;
if a child lives with encouragement he learns to have confidence;
if a child lives with praise he learns to appreciate;
if a child lives with fairness he learns justice.
if a child lives with security he learns to trust;
if a child lives with approval he learns to like himself;
if a child lives with love around him he learns to give love to the world.

my mum read part of a celtic blessing,

may beauty delight you and happiness uplift you,
may wonder fulfill you and love surround you.
may your step be steady and your arm be strong,
may your heart be peaceful and your word be true.

may you seek to learn, may you learn to live,
may you live to love , and may you love-always.

hope this helps-am off to blub now!

This would be more appropriate for a naming ceremony but here goes anyway..
My baby has no name yet;
like a new born chick or a puppy,
my baby is not named yet.

What numberless texts I examined
at dawn and night and evening over again!
But not one character did I find
which is as lovely as the child.
Starry field of the sky,
or heap of pearls in the depth.
Where can the name be found,how can I?

My baby has no name yet;
like an unnamed bluebird or white flowers
from the farthest land for the first,
I have no name for this baby of ours.

I love this poem!!

You may find this a bit too high-falutin for your tastes, but we used it at ds's baptism, and several people mentioned that they liked it. It's not explicitly about children or babies, but the middle verse in particular is quite appropriate. Rather bizarrely, it's called 'Carol for Advent', but don't let that put you off.

Let love come under your roof:
Oh house him, vagrant;
Happy the eaves where he builds a space-
That light winged migrant.
Italian airs shall echo and hang;
Under each rafter;
He'll touch into silver foil
Your peeling plaster,
Set geraniums round your door,
On hearth lay tinder;
So spead your nets to detain him here-
Don't let him wander.

Love has no manners, and pays no rent,
Full of evasions,
Is rude to your influential friends,
And sneaks the rations;
Sulkily packs his bags and is gone
At your reproof,
Leaving the plaster peeling still,
A leaking roof.
Likely, he'll not be back any more
For tea, nor dinner-
Love is, by nature, impossible-
Learn your dishonour:

Love, Love is a king uncrowned;
In their dumb motion
All the republican stars lament
His abdication.
Once he taught them solfeggios,
Danced in their choirs,
Till intellectual pride untuned
The shining spheres.
If he'd be glad of a share of your board,
Or a place by the fire,
Draw back the bolts, and give up to love
Your easiest chair.

By John Heath-Stubbs

Alternatively, if you can cope with religious stuff, there's the lovely passage in St Marks gospel about 'Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them.'
dd1 read this at dd2's baptism, which got several people gently dabbing their eyes.

There are actually very few suitable poems, and I did spend quite a lot of time looking. The only other one that springs to mind is the third verse of Coleridge's 'Frost at Midnight' , but it is quite purple, IYSWIM. I think the great poets must have been too busy being creative to really notice their children...

frogs I totally agree that there is a dearth of poems about children - strange really when you think what an awe-inspiring thing it is.....

Must try and do some work rather than sitting here with a lump in my throat....

Lovely ideas everyone. I do tend towards the down-to-earth and not over sentimental (but still has to be meaningful and emotional, a tricky balance!) The Plath poem we used was a bit graphic really (it had a phrase about 'stitching me up as if I were material' but I found it really evocative of ds1's birth and early days.

I will set the next exercise in the Poetry Workshop with this theme and see if we can write anything suitable for you!

elliot, you've brought out the English graduate in me now!

Try the first two poems by Anne Stevenson on this page . They're quite dark, but if you're all right with Sylvia Plath you might not mind that.

Children and babies are noticeably absent from pretty much any poetry book you pick up -- all the great women poets seem to have been childless. Except Sylvia Plath, I guess, but not really an example one would choose to emulate.

Presumably all the other women who could have been great poets were too up to their elbows in nappies and baked beans to write about the miracle of their babies.

elliott - i wrote a poem for my son's naming ceremony and read it myself - you may borrow it if you'd like to...
freddiecat was there.....

i also found another few before i decided to write one myself...
i will dig out the 'real' poems that I found, but the reason i wrote one myself was that i did not find one which said exactly what i wanted to say

the registry office asked me for a copy of it afterwards to include in their records....
(sorry that sounds big-headed - wasn't meant to be)

message withdrawn

William Blake.

SLEEP, sleep, beauty bright, Dreaming in the joys of night; Sleep, sleep; in thy sleep Little sorrows sit and weep. Sweet babe, in thy face Soft desires I can trace, Secret joys and secret smiles, Little pretty infant wiles. As thy softest limbs I feel, Smiles as of the morning steal O'er thy cheek, and o'er thy breast Where thy little heart doth rest. O the cunning wiles that creep In thy little heart asleep! When thy little heart doth wake, Then the dreadful night shall break.

Thanks for the further ideas. I'm afraid my own writing skills are not up to the job!
Frogs, I particularly liked 'the victory' - but it reminded me more of ds1 than ds2, who is very sweet and quiet and calm - more suited to the William Blake poem really.
I do know of a local woman poet whose children feature in her writing so will try and track some of her stuff down.
I will let you know what I decide if you're interested!

From Wordsworth's Ode on Intimations of Immortality, from Recollections of Early Childhood -

Hi elliott

Don't know if this will be any good to you, I am studying Philip Larkin at the moment and I really like this poem -

First Sight

Lambs that learn to walk in snow
When their bleating clouds the air
Meet a vast unwelcome, know
Nothing but a sunless glare.
Newly stumbling to and fro
All they find, outside the fold,
Is a wretched width of cold.

As they wait beside the ewe,
Her fleeces wetly caked, there lies
Hidden round them, waiting too,
Earth's immeasureable surprise.
They could not grasp it if they knew,
What so soon will wake and grow
Utterly unlike the snow.

ks, yes, we had that at ds1's welcoming (and the bit about marriage at our wedding!)
Maybe it would be ok to have the same thing? (after all the words at religious christenings etc are always the same aren't they?)

we had a lovely reading at our wedding from Bernard McClaverty's Grace Notes, a bit - I know it's about PND (!) - but we had a bit where the mum is talking about life before someone's arrival being like a symphony with the volume turned down & then all of a sudden you can hear it, a real epiphany
we also had that soppy e.e. cummings poem about not even the rain has such small hands. makes me feel all mushy..aawwww.

this is the cummings, i love it even though it's a bit cheesy by now...

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look will easily unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look will easily unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me,i and
my life will shut very beautifully,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefull everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
comples me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

darn it! that wasn't there when I looked before!

janh

have you used it too? my american chum read it so beautifully at our wedding