Tweetspeak Poetry

  • Home
  • FREE prompts
  • Earth Song
  • Every Day Poems—Subscribe! ✨
  • Teaching Tools
  • Books, Etc.
  • Patron Love

Poets and Poems: Emily Patterson and “So Much Tending Remains”

By Glynn Young Leave a Comment

Kangaroos Patterson
In 22 poems, Emily Patterson watches her daughter grow

I’ve been a father for 45 years, and if I’ve learned anything, it’s that you never stop being a parent. How you parent changes, of course, from a child’s total dependence upon you to increasing independence and ultimately becoming their own person. But, as a parent, you’re always navigating parenthood.

Emily Patterson began learning this lesson early with the birth of her daughter during the pandemic lockdown year of 2020. She reflects on the first two years of her child’s life in So Much Tending Remains, a collection of 22 poems covering the period from birth to toddlerhood.

Patterson learns the wonders of those first few minutes of life, when “you chirped / and bobbed your downy head / as my hands learned to hold you …” She recognizes her baby’s cry (“I was struck by its smallness”). She experiences those early months, when she’d often forget to eat and wonder about the changes in her own body.

And, accompanied by her new companion for life, she’d go out to pick apples.

When You Were Nine Weeks Old

So Much Tending Remains PattersonEarly autumn, we emerge
from our shared sleep haze,

drive Ohio backroads
to the orchard for Galas,

delicata, dough doused
in sugar so thick it sticks

to our teeth. We pick apples,
palm-sized and sun-warmed,

wandering the rows until
all we see is September sky,

a choir of trees, and each
other: a specific universe,

both familiar and new,
briefly ours alone.

It’s not all idyllic. Patterson describes the nights when the baby won’t sleep, and they take long walks. She notes how a toddler’s repetitive pounding of a toy piano key can drive one crazy. And she watches her child begin to develop the sense of independence and being her own person. And that’s indeed what a central feature of parenthood is about — rearing a child to independence.

Emily Patterson

Emily Patterson

She writes in a simple and powerful way. Her meaning is clear and unmistakable. She writes in a declarative style that makes her poems inviting to read and join in.

Patterson has published two other collections, To Bend and to Braid (2023) and Haiku at 5:38 a.m. (2024). Her work has been published by numerous literary journals and magazines, including Rust & Moth, Whale Road Review, North American Review, CALYX, and many others. She received a B.A. in English from Ohio Wesleyan University and an M.A. in Education from Ohio State University. She lives in Columbus, Ohio.

It’s a short and beautiful collection, perhaps mirroring just how short the childhood of our children actually is. The title itself, So Much Tending Remains, reflects Patterson’s understanding of parenthood, and 40 years from now she’ll know exactly how true that title is — and remains.

Related:

Poets and Poems: Emily Patterson and Haiku at 5:38 a.m.

Thin Starlight: Interview with Emily Jean Patterson

Photo by Jason Parrish, Creative Commons, via Flickr. Post by Glynn Young.

Browse more book reviews

How to Read a Poem by Tania Runyan

5 star

Buy How to Read a Poem Now!

How to Read a Poem uses images like the mouse, the hive, the switch (from the Billy Collins poem)—to guide readers into new ways of understanding poems. Anthology included.

“I require all our incoming poetry students—in the MFA I direct—to buy and read this book.”

—Jeanetta Calhoun Mish

  • Author
  • Recent Posts
Glynn Young
Glynn Young
Editor and Twitter-Party-Cool-Poem-Weaver at Tweetspeak Poetry
Glynn Young lives in St. Louis where he retired as the team leader for Online Strategy & Communications for a Fortune 500 company. Glynn writes poetry, short stories and fiction, and he loves to bike. He is the author of the Civil War romance Brookhaven, as well as Poetry at Work and the Dancing Priest Series. Find Glynn at Faith, Fiction, Friends.
Glynn Young
Latest posts by Glynn Young (see all)
  • A History of Children’s Stories: “The Haunted Wood” by Sam Leith - May 20, 2025
  • World War II Had Its Poets, Too - May 15, 2025
  • Czeslaw Milosz, 1946-1953: “Poet in the New World” - May 13, 2025

Filed Under: article, book reviews, Books, Childhood Poems, children, Fairytales, Literary Tour, Poems, poetry, Poetry at Work Day, poetry reviews, Poets, work poems

Try Every Day Poems...

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Take How to Read a Poem

Get the Introduction, the Billy Collins poem, and Chapter 1

get the sample now

Welcome to Tweetspeak

New to Tweetspeak Poetry? Start here, in The Mischief Café. You're a regular? Check out our May Menu

Patron Love

❤️

Welcome a little patron love, when you help keep the world poetic.

The Graphic Novel

"Stunning, heartbreaking, and relevant illustrations"

Callie Feyen, teacher

read a summary of The Yellow Wallpaper

meet The Yellow Wallpaper characters

How to Write Poetry

Your Comments

  • Glynn on World War II Had Its Poets, Too
  • Sandra Fox Murphy on World War II Had Its Poets, Too
  • Glynn on Poets and Poems: Kelly Belmonte and “The Mother of All Words”
  • Bethany R. on Poets and Poems: Kelly Belmonte and “The Mother of All Words”

Featured In

We're happy to have been featured in...

The Huffington Post

The Paris Review

The New York Observer

Tumblr Book News

Stay in Touch With Us

Categories

Learn to Write Form Poems

How to Write an Acrostic

How to Write a Ballad

How to Write a Catalog Poem

How to Write a Ghazal

How to Write a Haiku

How to Write an Ode

How to Write a Pantoum

How to Write a Rondeau

How to Write a Sestina

How to Write a Sonnet

How to Write a Villanelle

5 FREE POETRY PROMPTS

Get 5 FREE inbox poetry prompts from the popular book How to Write a Poem

Shakespeare Resources

Poetry Classroom: Sonnet 18

Common Core Picture Poems: Sonnet 73

Sonnet 104 Annotated

Sonnet 116 Annotated

Character Analysis: Romeo and Juliet

Character Analysis: Was Hamlet Sane or Insane?

Why Does Hamlet Wait to Kill the King?

10 Fun Shakespeare Resources

About Shakespeare: Poet and Playwright

Top 10 Shakespeare Sonnets

See all 154 Shakespeare sonnets in our Shakespeare Library!

Explore Work From Black Poets

About Us

  • • A Blessing for Writers
  • • Our Story
  • • Meet Our Team
  • • Literary Citizenship
  • • Poet Laura
  • • Poetry for Life: The 5 Vital Approaches
  • • T. S. Poetry Press – All Books
  • • Contact Us

Write With Us

  • • 5 FREE Poetry Prompts-Inbox Delivery
  • • 30 Days to Richer Writing Workshop
  • • Poetry Prompts
  • • Submissions
  • • The Write to Poetry

Read With Us

  • • All Our Books
  • • Book Club
  • • Every Day Poems—Subscribe! ✨
  • • Literacy Extras
  • • Poems to Listen By: Audio Series
  • • Poet-a-Day
  • • Poets and Poems
  • • 50 States Projects
  • • Charlotte Perkins Gilman Poems Library
  • • Edgar Allan Poe Poems Arts & Experience Library
  • • William Blake Poems Arts & Experience Library
  • • William Shakespeare Sonnet Library

Celebrate With Us

  • • Poem on Your Pillow Day
  • • Poetic Earth Month
  • • Poet in a Cupcake Day
  • • Poetry at Work Day
  • • Random Acts of Poetry Day
  • • Take Your Poet to School Week
  • • Take Your Poet to Work Day

Gift Ideas

  • • Every Day Poems
  • • Our Shop
  • • Everybody Loves a Book!

Connect

  • • Donate
  • • Blog Buttons
  • • By Heart
  • • Shop for Tweetspeak Fun Stuff

Copyright © 2025 Tweetspeak Poetry · FAQ, Disclosure & Privacy Policy