about the stanza

Welcome to the stanza, a little room for poetry and the writing life.

For those of you who have come over from my old blog, Both Fires, thanks for making the switch. When I began blogging at Both Fires, it was futile to try to separate my life as writer from my life as mother because of the stage of life my family was in. I began Both Fires to explore the intersection of motherhood and the writing life, but as my children grew and developed a sense of a public self outside the family as well as a sense of privacy, I started thinking about a new blog. It feels important to me that they become the tellers and keepers of their own stories. As it happens, my life has changed, too: a cross-country move and now all three children in school for at least part of every day. I really do have a little room for poetry in my life now, in a way that I didn’t back in the days of Legos in my coffee, play-doh on the seat of my pants, and spit-up on my shoulder. And someday, if I ever grow up into a big-girl poet, I’d like to have a website that says more “writer who happens to have a few kids” than “mom trying to write.” Now seemed a good time to make the change.

I have enjoyed reflecting on and sharing my experiences as mom and writer, spreading the word on and the reach of poetry, and connecting with and learning from you, Reader, whether you are a poetry person or not. I’m sure the children and motherhood will still creep into this blog at times. You can take the children out of the blog, but you can’t take the motherhood out of the mother! In fact, I think this blog will be very similar to what my old blog as been over the last several months in terms of tone and content.

As for the name, the stanza: In literature a stanza is a series of lines that comprise one unit of a poem. I like to think of each stanza as a kind of poem in and of itself. The word stanza comes from the Italian for “room” (hence the subtitle), which was derived from the Latin stantia, meaning ‘to stay.’ So, a stanza is a little room to step into, to look around in, to stay for a moment before moving on to the next place. I hope you will do just that: come by and visit, see what’s here, join the conversation if you’re so inclined, and take what you like for the next little room of your day, week, life, journey.

Thanks for reading,

Molly Spencer

A note on the header image: Detail from “Interior With Young Man Reading” by Vilhelm Hammerschøi. Public domain from Wikimedia Commons.

All original text and photos (c) Molly C. Spencer 2012 –.

A note on fair use: This blog is intended to be a place of learning. I have attempted to use any text/images by others under the guidelines of fair use. If you are the owner of a copyright on text/images used here and you feel a copyright violation has occurred, please contact me at mollycspencer (at) gmail (dot) com, and I’ll be happy to resolve the issue promptly.