S3, E6: "On my First Son" by Ben Jonson
This is the sixth episode of the Fatherhood series of Poems for the Speed of Life with Shane Breslin.
Today's poem is "On my First Son" by Ben Jonson.
Listen to the episode
What to look out for:
The language can be a challenge, but it’s rewarding to a close reading
The sense that the poet wants to lose all his identity as “father” now that his son has died
How grief can compel us to feel like love might not be worth it, and we might not want to experience love again if it’s to end like this
As always, with every poem on Poems for the Speed of Life, you may have a different take or interpretation. And that’s a good thing. The great poet TS Eliot said, “Poetry communicates before it’s understood.”
So whatever the poems communicate to you, allow that communication to enter your mind and heart and soul. Whatever this poem communicates to you is yours to keep forever, and don’t let me (or anyone) tell you otherwise.
Poems on Fathers and Fatherhood
This is a poem from the Fatherhood series of Poems for the Speed of Life.
All the poems in this series will be about fathers or by fathers.
They will have something vital to show us about the experience, either of fatherhood itself, or of being a son or daughter of a father.
One of the poems was written in 1603, another in 1800, but most will be from the last 50 years or so. There will be a poem by a star of social media, there will be a poem that is actually a song lyric, and I also — and this is a first for me — will be including one of my own poems in this series, a poem I wrote last year about and for my daughter.
This series is for men who would like to be able to emulate their own fathers, and also for men who want to become the father they never had.
But it’s not just for men. Around 60% of the listeners to this podcast over the past 18 months have been women, and all the episodes in this series will be for women too. Because men need women and women need men. We need each other to sustain life, and we need each other to enjoy to the full the life we sustain. At our best, we each bring something different and essential.
So there can be doubt that there are lots of women out there who would like their men — their husbands or partners or the men they would like to meet, the men who are the fathers of their children now or might be in the future — to fully embody the role of father, in all its complexities and challenges and glories.
We all need fathers and father figures in our lives, and maybe now more than ever, with so much immaturity, short-term thinking and lack of leadership in the world. This series of poems will try to bring some of that inspiration and wisdom straight to you.
So thank you for being here. Please enjoy this series of Poems for the Speed of Life, and if you do, please share one episode with someone who might benefit from hearing it.
For a detailed outline of the mission and purpose behind this podcast, please check out these two episodes:
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Music Credit:
MANTRA by Alex-Productions | https://onsound.eu/Music promoted by https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/Creative Commons CC BY 3.0https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/