What Kind of Woman

Poems

Kate Baer

• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780063008427
• eBook ISBN: 9780063008434
• Subtopic: Poetry

An Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller

A Goop Book Club Pick
"If you want your breath to catch and your heart to stop, turn to Kate Baer."--Joanna Goddard, Cup of Jo
A stunning
and honest debut poetry collection about the beauty and hardships of being a
woman in the world today, and the many roles we play - mother, partner, and
friend.
“When life throws you a bag of
sorrow, hold out your hands/Little by little, mountains are climbed.” So ends
Kate Baer’s remarkable poem “Things My Girlfriends Teach Me.” In “Nothing Tastes as Good as Skinny
Feels” she challenges her reader to consider their grandmother’s cake, the
taste of the sea, the cool swill of freedom. In her poem “Deliverance” about her son’s birth she writes “What is the word for when
the light leaves the body?/What is the word for when it/at last, returns?”


Through poems that are as
unforgettably beautiful as they are accessible, Kate Bear proves herself to truly be
an exemplary voice in modern poetry. Her words make women feel seen in their
own bodies, in their own marriages, and in their own lives. Her poems are those
you share with your mother, your daughter, your sister, and your friends.

Part I

Advice for Former Selves

Burn your speeches, your instructions,

your prophecies too. In the morning when

you wake: stretch. Do not complain. Do not

set sail on someone else’s becoming, their voice

in your throat. Do not look down your nose

at a dinner party, laughing: If only they didn’t

have so many children.

Revision is necessary. The compulsory bloom.

When you emerge with crystals in one hand,

revenge in the other, remember the humble

barn swallow who returns in spring. If not

for her markings, another bird entirely.

Ego

I once had a boyfriend who would not let me

watch him eat. He did not want me to see him

grind and swallow, gulp and guzzle, suck the

marrow from his teeth.

He did not want me to see him need.

Not Like Other Girls

Not with that loose demeanor, your

chilled-out tone, the way you do not

care if he does or does not call. You can

keep up. Speak with self-assurance. Run

with the best of them. You are what we call

a sweet enigma, all dreams and bottle caps.

No lisp of weakness on your tongue.

No, you’re not like other girls, he says,

beaming. Praise for all you’ve left behind.

Twenties

I found my first gray hair at nineteen, slept with her son at twenty-one. For months I ate nothing but beans and cotton balls. For years I did nothing but yawn. I will never be as young as the night I put on a long red dress and danced in the street with you. Some things we don’t remember; some things will always taste the same. First—the thrill of fast cigarettes. Second—the significance of signs. Once I kissed a girl in Jerusalem, all legs and cherry lips. I did not take her number. I did not know how much I’d long to hold her in my arms again.

College Boy

You brought wine and a grin that said

most beautiful girl. And I drank while

you watched (while you sat there and

watched) my whole mouth turn to slurs,

to a slick open wound. To a place for

your unraveling.

(Did you know when you bait a deer

it’s called a violation, but when you poison

a girl it’s called a date.)

My roommate watched while you

carried me, limp and sleeping, up

carpet stairs.

(What if this is what I wanted?)

In the morning, you asked if I was

sleeping. As if my clothes still held

me. As if I’d ever been awake.

First Love

You were the Eden of my youth. All

sand and sun, cerulean eyes. A paradise

with limbs. Together we went climbing

on the edge of rocks (on the edge of any

thing).

Do you remember my sister’s laugh? The

Chevy’s smell? The way we cried when they

pulled his body from the waves?

Sometimes I imagine what it’d be like to

show you I’m alive. The thrill of it. The sharp

inhale. The nerve exposed. The bone.

Girls’ Night Out

In restaurants we argue over who will

pay even though the real question is

who will confess their children are dull

or their marriage has holes at the knees.

We order french fries, salads, and brie.

Hold wine to our lips. Pull truth from

our bags that we kept all along.

She wonders—do you remember when

I cried in the cab. Wore that shirt with

the sleeves. Left him alone in the rain.

We do, we do.

Moon Song

You are not an evergreen, unchanged

by the pitiless snow. You are not a photo,

a brand, a character written for sex or

house or show. You do not have to choose

one or the other: a dream or a dreamer, the

bird or the birder. You may be a woman of

commotion and quiet. Magic and brain.

You can be a mother and a poet. A wife and

a lover. You can dance on the graves you dug

on Tuesday, pulling out the bones of yourself

...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Epigraph
• Contents
• Part I
• Part II
• Part III
• Author’s Note
• Acknowledgments
• An Excerpt from I Hope This Finds You Well: Author’s Note
• About the Author
• Copyright
• About the Publisher