This poem slaid me, Margaret Ann! (And I'm sorry I've never included "Ann" when I've said your name before.) It is so relatable, so beautiful, and so gut-punching.
When I was young, I changed my name with some frequency - like trying on different possible selves. My family had always called me Lisa, but in first grade, I became Elise. Then, when we moved, I became Lizzy, eventually shortened to Liz, even though I was always Lisa at home. When I left for college, I became Lisa there, and I've been her ever since.
Thank you so much, Lisa! No sorry needed—I never expect people to instinctively know what names I want. Now that you’ve got me thinking about it, I can see a lot more places were my name felt like a burden or a gift, depending on how people used it. What an interesting thing to think about (this is why your prompts are so good).
“Trying on different possible selves”—yes. I see my kids doing this too and it’s interesting to watch it play out.
This is so good too Margaret Ann. What will we hone away to find love and acceptance? You really captured the huge significance of a seemingly insignificant change.
Thank you, Billy. It's funny--now that I have reclaimed "Margaret Ann" (as soon as I finished college, a full quarter century ago 😉), I find myself missing "Maggie." I still have college friends who call me that, but no one in my day-to-day life. My husband never did because we met when I was still trying to shed "Maggie" with all my might.
Great poem, Margaret Ann. I love the haunting finish — and I so relate with that! I’m glad you reclaimed your first name, and also that you can make space to be Maggie too, when that feels right.
😊 I know a Lisa who changed her name to Elisabeth as an adult. It’s always seemed like such a beautiful, brave decision—choosing a new name or reclaiming an old one.
I remember pouring over the keychains and bracelets in those little kiosks, always wishing for some cooler name! I love this line - "I would like all of my names please." And you shall have them, Karri Temple Bracket (except that I don't know your middle name)!!
I love the gentleness of your opening lines, Jim - "I gladly held your hand / As you grew more sensitive / To your own interior." Thank you so much for sharing your beautiful poem and what must have been a heartbreaking experience! I think I've had Covid like 87 times by now (okay, that's a slight exaggeration, but I've had long Covid since March 2020, so it feels that way). It's not fun. May you remain a NOVID forever!
Lisa, I am saddened to read your experience with COVID. There is a continuing story about my breakup with Linda. We both joined a hiking group but I originally tried to not sign up hikes where Linda signed up. Then I signed up for a little Friday walk that happens every Friday up and back a wonderful place called Sabino Canyon which is an elevation climb next to a running creek between glorious mountains with steep rises that is home for lots of mesquite, oak, sycamore trees and wonderful cacti including the regal Sahuaro.
Linda arrived and started talking with friends, so I took off on my own and went to the top. On the way down as it was getting dark I was passing many groups heading up. I ignored them not wanting to create discomfort on either side. While passing one group a familiar voice yelled softly “Jim is that you”? I replied yes and Linda came over to me and invited me to go to a nearby restaurant with outdoor seating for a drink. I felt very uncomfortable but agreed.
She told me she missed me and asked if we could be friends. I agreed to friendship. Since then she went with me last month to Los Angeles where my son was getting married. My son sees Linda like a second mother. Next month we are traveling together to Thailand, Laos—where my new daughter’s family escaped from—Cambodia and Vietnam. However, we travel only as friends because that is a boundary I’m comfortable with. I won’t bore you with any more details.
I’m still careful to mask in crowded indoor spaces and use a protective nasal spray. Linda has become much more careful.
Relationships can be so complicated, can’t they? And also so simple - if you enjoy someone’s company, you want to be in their presence, even when there’s no tidy label to affix to the situation. I hope you have a wonderful trip to SE Asia! I spent a summer teaching English in Vietnam and have traveled a bit to Thailand and Cambodia - you are in for a treat!
Thank you. I’ve been around the area to China, India, Nepal, Japan and other places. I’m not religious but I have been a student, off and on, of Buddhism and Taoism so will love visiting the Buddhist Temples.
First of all, congratulations on reclamation of your name AND on grant funding and beginning another year of writing goodness with Maya Popa (yay!!). And, I love your poem.
I love the story this tells -- the moment the skies opened up for you and you knew it was time to make it official. So interesting, too, that the stranger with Alzheimer's saw the real you when others couldn't. Makes me wonder if dementia takes away our preconceived notions / judgments, or if that was just a special individual, or if it was one of those serendipitous things that can't be explained.
"The ache to blend was absolute" - what a line. I know that ache - I bet almost everyone does. For the record, though, I thought you were SO COOL back in our Georgia days. And I still do.
This poem conveys incredible, valuable power, reclaimed. It tells the story, in broad strokes, of nearly every woman my age and above. I hope in each subsequent generation that proportion is reduced!
Thank you so much, Kim! I hope the same. I was raised Mormon, so when it comes to gender socialization, that makes me at least a generation or two older than I actually am.
Well, I'd say the petitioner has just cause for changing his name . . . though I might have chosen something other than Harry Hilterman! This makes me think of a contest in the Washington Post Style Invitational's like a billion years ago when I was kid. The assignment was to come up with the most awkward conversation stopper. The one I remember (not sure if it was the winner or just a finalist) was "So I asked the barber to cut my hair a little more like Hitler's . . . "
This is such a fun poem, Carole! You put a smile on my face. Since Lisa is actually a nickname for Elisabeth (with an s not a z), I know all about the woes of having your name misspelled.
Thanks for the prompt! That “e” has been an irritant all my life. As for “Elisabeth,” that was my Grandma’s middle name, so I would never get that wrong. I went for “Elizabeth” for my daughter’s middle name, so I’d get that right, as well. I’ll be waiting for your next prompt and hoping I have something to say!
I love this, Lisa! Your poem brought tears to my eyes. I am going to save your prompt and think about it. I have some initial thoughts, but I want to wait until I can give it my full attention. Thank you for sharing this and for your vulnerability! And congratulations. XO
You are the best, thank you. I will love to share it with you, when it comes. I don't have any idea when that will be, but if it takes a while, I'll be sure to tag you, so you can see it. Very interesting prompt!! XO
This is such a rich post and poem. So much here to write about. I’m technically Lee Ann but I closed my name up so no one would call me Lee. Then there are so many ways to spell LeeAnn. I obviously did not like my mother’s choice of spelling because people thought Ann was my middle name, but I actually had no middle name, and I really wanted a middle name. I gave myself the middle name Nancy after Nancy Drew because I read all of the Nancy Drew books. In elementary school I signed everything LeeAnn Nancy Pickrell.
The name I gave myself
*
I went to college, barely eighteen
moving away from my best friends
as we scattered like seeds all over the country
and I didn’t know anyone in the dorms.
*
So when I said my name
in a getting-to know-you exercise
and someone said, “Wow, Margaret Ann
is a REALLY long name,” I laughed
and said, “Actually, I also go by Maggie.”
*
I did not go by Maggie.
But it seemed like the kind of name
a carefree girl,
a darkness-free girl,
a drama-free girl might have.
(I was none of those things.)
So I became “Maggie” for four years.
*
My new name became beloved
because I loved the people there.
It was also a secret sorrow:
a way for me to fit in
by cutting myself out.
This poem slaid me, Margaret Ann! (And I'm sorry I've never included "Ann" when I've said your name before.) It is so relatable, so beautiful, and so gut-punching.
When I was young, I changed my name with some frequency - like trying on different possible selves. My family had always called me Lisa, but in first grade, I became Elise. Then, when we moved, I became Lizzy, eventually shortened to Liz, even though I was always Lisa at home. When I left for college, I became Lisa there, and I've been her ever since.
Thank you so much, Lisa! No sorry needed—I never expect people to instinctively know what names I want. Now that you’ve got me thinking about it, I can see a lot more places were my name felt like a burden or a gift, depending on how people used it. What an interesting thing to think about (this is why your prompts are so good).
“Trying on different possible selves”—yes. I see my kids doing this too and it’s interesting to watch it play out.
This is so good too Margaret Ann. What will we hone away to find love and acceptance? You really captured the huge significance of a seemingly insignificant change.
Yes! So well put, Billy.
Thank you, Billy. It's funny--now that I have reclaimed "Margaret Ann" (as soon as I finished college, a full quarter century ago 😉), I find myself missing "Maggie." I still have college friends who call me that, but no one in my day-to-day life. My husband never did because we met when I was still trying to shed "Maggie" with all my might.
Let us know when you're having a Maggie day! I'm happy to call you whatever you want to be called.
😁 Will do!
Great poem, Margaret Ann. I love the haunting finish — and I so relate with that! I’m glad you reclaimed your first name, and also that you can make space to be Maggie too, when that feels right.
Thank you, Rebekah! My college friends still call me “Maggie” and I wouldn’t have it any other way 💛.
I'm still Liz to my high school friends, too!
😊 I know a Lisa who changed her name to Elisabeth as an adult. It’s always seemed like such a beautiful, brave decision—choosing a new name or reclaiming an old one.
What an interesting story and poem! Glad you were able to reclaim your name!
Thank you, Karri! Me too 💛.
This is a lovely poem, Margaret Ann.
Thank you, LeeAnn.
That’s “Karri” with a K.
Two Rs no E.
You won’t find that on a kiosk
In a souvenir shop
On vacation.
Oh the years I spent wishing to be
Carrie
Kerry
Kari
Karrie
But alas after fifty years
I have learned to love my name.
I gave up my last name at nineteen.
Only to snatch it back at twenty three.
Just to give it up again
Because that’s the way it’s done.
I would like all of my names please.
First
Middle
Maiden
Last.
They are all mine.
They are all me.
"I would like all of my names please... They are all me." -- I love this, Karri!
I remember pouring over the keychains and bracelets in those little kiosks, always wishing for some cooler name! I love this line - "I would like all of my names please." And you shall have them, Karri Temple Bracket (except that I don't know your middle name)!!
My sibling cathey
Nicked my name to be "dollface".
Still a mystery.
I can’t decide which I love more, “nicked my name” or you as Dollface!
lol. 😂
But such a delightful mystery! 😂
From the other side
Letting Go of the Past
I gladly held your hand
As you grew more sensitive
To your own interior
And slowly healed
From the undulating waves and eddies
With cross currents of red, blue, and green
Of thoughts, feeling and emotions
Creating such turmoil and chaos
That you had no space for me
And a single tear
Could not relieve the bleaching
Of my spirit
To find peace and serenity in the moment
I no longer forsake the peace
Arising from natural beauty and calm
That stills my heart and cleanses my soul
I am no longer succumbing
To the daily pennies of order and frugality
No longer swimming in the turmoil of past memories
As I travel to local and distant landscapes
Of nature, knowledge and the knowing spirit
I have let you go
Written to girlfriend of 25 years breaking up with me because she believed I took COVID to seriously. I'm still a NOVID which she no longer is.
F
I love the gentleness of your opening lines, Jim - "I gladly held your hand / As you grew more sensitive / To your own interior." Thank you so much for sharing your beautiful poem and what must have been a heartbreaking experience! I think I've had Covid like 87 times by now (okay, that's a slight exaggeration, but I've had long Covid since March 2020, so it feels that way). It's not fun. May you remain a NOVID forever!
Lisa, I am saddened to read your experience with COVID. There is a continuing story about my breakup with Linda. We both joined a hiking group but I originally tried to not sign up hikes where Linda signed up. Then I signed up for a little Friday walk that happens every Friday up and back a wonderful place called Sabino Canyon which is an elevation climb next to a running creek between glorious mountains with steep rises that is home for lots of mesquite, oak, sycamore trees and wonderful cacti including the regal Sahuaro.
Linda arrived and started talking with friends, so I took off on my own and went to the top. On the way down as it was getting dark I was passing many groups heading up. I ignored them not wanting to create discomfort on either side. While passing one group a familiar voice yelled softly “Jim is that you”? I replied yes and Linda came over to me and invited me to go to a nearby restaurant with outdoor seating for a drink. I felt very uncomfortable but agreed.
She told me she missed me and asked if we could be friends. I agreed to friendship. Since then she went with me last month to Los Angeles where my son was getting married. My son sees Linda like a second mother. Next month we are traveling together to Thailand, Laos—where my new daughter’s family escaped from—Cambodia and Vietnam. However, we travel only as friends because that is a boundary I’m comfortable with. I won’t bore you with any more details.
I’m still careful to mask in crowded indoor spaces and use a protective nasal spray. Linda has become much more careful.
Thank you for replying to me.
Relationships can be so complicated, can’t they? And also so simple - if you enjoy someone’s company, you want to be in their presence, even when there’s no tidy label to affix to the situation. I hope you have a wonderful trip to SE Asia! I spent a summer teaching English in Vietnam and have traveled a bit to Thailand and Cambodia - you are in for a treat!
Thank you. I’ve been around the area to China, India, Nepal, Japan and other places. I’m not religious but I have been a student, off and on, of Buddhism and Taoism so will love visiting the Buddhist Temples.
What a deeply heartbreaking decision that had to be. Thank you for your lovely words.
'a woman who loves
the shape of her own ribs,
who sings the heaving
of her own heart'
Welcome in real life Lisa Jensen.
Thank you so much! I'm really fond of this whole real life thing so far.
First of all, congratulations on reclamation of your name AND on grant funding and beginning another year of writing goodness with Maya Popa (yay!!). And, I love your poem.
***
Sticks and stones
may break your bones,
but names may break
your spirit.
Even if, especially if,
they are not malicious epithets
designed to wound, but proper names.
Names meant to fit like a second skin,
yet which are so ill-fitting,
they can only ever be
proper humiliating,
proper debilitating,
and after 40+++ dysphoric years
of answering to them,
proper obliterating.
This is why, when you’ve
abandoned all hope
of hearing yourself called
anything that sounds remotely right,
or true, or like it belongs to you,
and a stranger with Alzheimer’s
ironically cuts through your confusion,
greeting you with your real name
as though he’s known you
for eternity in another dimension,
you hear his words as
herald angels singing for you
to report immediately, if not sooner,
to the clerk of probate’s office.
Oh wow, I love this and your angel with Alzheimers! KEITH, KEITH, KEITH, I am so glad you're here, and with a proper fitting name.
I love the story this tells -- the moment the skies opened up for you and you knew it was time to make it official. So interesting, too, that the stranger with Alzheimer's saw the real you when others couldn't. Makes me wonder if dementia takes away our preconceived notions / judgments, or if that was just a special individual, or if it was one of those serendipitous things that can't be explained.
Lovely Keith 🥰
The ache to blend
was absolute. It ran its pincers
even over my given name,
willing its crags
to soften and coil
into the standard two C's,
which might get me into
.
that recess circle
ramparted with hair and acid wash
where names were alliterated
and Hollywood-aspirational
(Maryanna Moody)
though not always blockbuster
(Laura Laycock).
.
I had thought Guess jeans
might do it, but it seemed
a bigger ticket was required,
like being a Baptist, or beautiful,
or athletic, or mean-spirited,
.
or at the very least
having a name that
ranged like the Georgia Piedmont,
soft and flowing,
all edges long buried
or yet to come.
"The ache to blend was absolute" - what a line. I know that ache - I bet almost everyone does. For the record, though, I thought you were SO COOL back in our Georgia days. And I still do.
My guess jeans didn’t do it either but by that point I didn’t care!
Cheers to CWC!
Cheers to reclamation and gleeful laughter!
Cheers, cheers, cheers! 🥂
Thank you! I gladly accept all cheers and high kicks!
What a powerful thing you have done by reclaiming your name!!!! Bravo.
Thank you so much, friend!
This poem conveys incredible, valuable power, reclaimed. It tells the story, in broad strokes, of nearly every woman my age and above. I hope in each subsequent generation that proportion is reduced!
Thank you so much, Kim! I hope the same. I was raised Mormon, so when it comes to gender socialization, that makes me at least a generation or two older than I actually am.
Soooo powerful! Especially the laughter!
Thank you, Judy! I'm so excited to get to share part of your last name now. ❤️
Here, on the same subject, I'll contrast your beautiful poem with my silly one
The Petition
David Angel
… and do you ask this Court to change your name for the purpose of defeating any creditors, sir?
I am only in debt to the Lord, Your Honor
By what name would you like to be known henceforth, sir?
Harry Hilterman, Your Honor
Seriously? Well, it’s your name. Sign the Affidavit, and file it with the probate clerk.
Thank you judge
I, Hamas Hitlerman solemnly swear…
Copyright ©️ 2023, David Angel Music, All Rights Reserved
Well, I'd say the petitioner has just cause for changing his name . . . though I might have chosen something other than Harry Hilterman! This makes me think of a contest in the Washington Post Style Invitational's like a billion years ago when I was kid. The assignment was to come up with the most awkward conversation stopper. The one I remember (not sure if it was the winner or just a finalist) was "So I asked the barber to cut my hair a little more like Hitler's . . . "
The one I use when I want to end a conversation is "I think there are other factors at play". If that doesn't work, I just leave.
I'm going to have to try that one out!
Congrats on the legal last name. I think it’s too late in life to change my first name, but thanks to your prompt, I came up with a poem on my name.
https://open.substack.com/pub/caroleroseland/p/that-pesky-e?r=3myco9&utm_medium=ios
This is such a fun poem, Carole! You put a smile on my face. Since Lisa is actually a nickname for Elisabeth (with an s not a z), I know all about the woes of having your name misspelled.
Thanks for the prompt! That “e” has been an irritant all my life. As for “Elisabeth,” that was my Grandma’s middle name, so I would never get that wrong. I went for “Elizabeth” for my daughter’s middle name, so I’d get that right, as well. I’ll be waiting for your next prompt and hoping I have something to say!
Hopefully I'll have another poem and prompt out tomorrow! I suspect we all have plenty to say . . . it can get pretty buried, though, can't it?
That was delightful Carole!
I love this, Lisa! Your poem brought tears to my eyes. I am going to save your prompt and think about it. I have some initial thoughts, but I want to wait until I can give it my full attention. Thank you for sharing this and for your vulnerability! And congratulations. XO
Thank you so much, Danielle! I would love to read your poem or thoughts, whenever they're ready for sharing.
You are the best, thank you. I will love to share it with you, when it comes. I don't have any idea when that will be, but if it takes a while, I'll be sure to tag you, so you can see it. Very interesting prompt!! XO
This is such a rich post and poem. So much here to write about. I’m technically Lee Ann but I closed my name up so no one would call me Lee. Then there are so many ways to spell LeeAnn. I obviously did not like my mother’s choice of spelling because people thought Ann was my middle name, but I actually had no middle name, and I really wanted a middle name. I gave myself the middle name Nancy after Nancy Drew because I read all of the Nancy Drew books. In elementary school I signed everything LeeAnn Nancy Pickrell.
And congratulations on the grant!
Thank you LeeAnn Nancy Pickrell! I love that you gave yourself a middle name.
This one I wrote for my wife’s mom.
https://open.substack.com/pub/billy2r6q7/p/constance?r=1nyjrs&utm_medium=ios
What a loving tribute to your MIL! I've known a few Constance's in my life, and they are all lovely.
I still love that one Billy!
Thanks Karri! I got some points with that one! 😂