My Daughter at the Gymnastics Party
by David Bottoms
(from his 1999 book, Vagrant Grace, published by Copper Canyon Press)
When I sat for a moment in the bleachers
of the lower-school gym
to watch, one by one, the girls of my daughter’s kindergarten
climb the fat rope hung over the Styrofoam pit,
I remembered my sweet exasperated mother
and those shifting faces of injury
that followed me like an odor to ball games and practices,
playgrounds of monkey bars
and trampolines, those wilted children sprouting daily
in that garden of trauma behind her eyes.
Then Rachel’s turn,
the smallest child in class, and up she went, legs twined
on the rope, ponytail swinging, fifteen, twenty,
twenty-five feet, the pink tendrils of her leotard
climbing without effort
until she’d cleared the lower rafters.
She looked down, then up, hanging in that balance
of pride and fear,
then glancing
toward the bleachers to see if I watched, let go
her left hand, unworried by that boy
with the waffled skull, stiff and turning blue
under the belly of a horse,
or the Christmas Eve skater on Cagle’s Lake,
her face a black plum
against the bottom of the ice.
I love this poem for many reasons--let's get to them!
I find poems that make me wonder, "okay, where is this going?" very appealing.
lately, I have been reading too many poems that do not follow through. When I get to the end, I am left with nothing, causing me to question what the point of that poem is.
This poem had the opposite effect! I was already invested in the poem; I think anyone who has ever loved a person, especially a child, can relate to the speaker's fear. Watching his daughter do gymnastics may not be your specific fear, but I bet you've got something: a son playing in a pool, a niece surfing, a grandson on a dirt bike . . . you get it.
The details here give us clear images to worry over: rope is mentioned twice, monkey bars, trampolines. There there are some extremely thoughtful line breaks:
She looked down, then up, hanging in that balance
of pride and fear,
then glancing
toward the bleachers to see if I watched, let go
Balance, fear, glancing, go--there is so much movement in these end words, and it is pushing us not only to the daughter's routine, but also what pops into the speaker's mind,
that he shares with us. Two other children whose deaths made their parents' worse fears materialize, and the poet provides vivid and unforgettable descriptions of these dead children without ever using the word "dead."
This is a devastating poem, all the moreso because it starts in the everyday and is so very relatable. Of course, that is when most deaths occur, for most of us at this point in time. Not in war or a horrific crime, but driving to the mall, playing football, hiking at a local park.
I came across this poem when I was looking for poems about childhood to use in a writing workshop I am leading on Sunday, February 2. The workshop is a fundraiser for SMART Reading, and the cost is $10 (or more, if you like). I ended up not including this poem in the packet participants will receive, only because it is focused more on the parent than the child. But this poem stuck with me, so I am sharing it here.
If you would like to attend the workshop, which is open to all and will take place on Zoom, please go to the link below to register.
SMART Reading, Generative Poetry Workshop
February 2, 2025
11:00am-1:30pm Pacific
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