Bio: Victoria Bailey has a PhD in Creative Writing and an MA in Women’s Studies. Her poetry has been included in a variety of feminist publications. She is co-editor, along with Dr. Andrea O’Reilly and Dr. Fiona Joy Green, of the Demeter Press anthology Coming Into Being: Mothers on Finding and Realizing Feminism, which contains a short collection of her poetry titled, “Colostrum.” She is also a feminist mother of three.
Abstract
This long-form poem recalls, reflects on, rages about, and reframes ways that I have felt, experienced, perceived, and observed blame linked to being a mother, realizing my mothering, and navigating the challenges of perceptions of idealized motherhood from my past and current places of positionality including being considered an immigrant, single, married, divorced, blended family, young, and geriatric mother. It’s inspired by the opening of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “How Do I Love Thee? (Sonnet 43)” which begins: “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.”
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