“I know this sounds funny…”

Last night I read for the delegates at the NUS Women’s Conference. Afterwards, several people came up to me and said they liked my poems, “especially the one about the beard.” I said I’d post it online, so here it is. It’s a poem I wrote after being asked several times whether I was a boy or a girl by kids. It can be an awkward question and answering it always leaves me wondering whether I’ve let the side down and/or scarred the kid for life. So I wrote a poem in which someone’s mother grows a beard and sticks two fingers up at the world. Whenever I read it, people laugh and enjoy the easy rhythm, but it also gets them thinking about gender and this strange question of whether someone is a girl or a boy. I think of it as Gender Studies, Key Stage One. (Key Stage Two will address the tricky implication that adopting the appearance and mannerisms of a man is necessary to achieve and assert personal liberty, thus perpetuating the idea of the feminine as weak and oppressed other – but more on that next time.) Poem featured after the jump.

BEARD!

I know this sounds funny and I know this sounds weird

But I woke to find one morning that my mum had grown a beard.

And my dad was kinda worried and my dog was kinda scared

Especially when we realised that my mother LIKED her beard.

It was long and brown and hairy and striped with black and grey,

And my mother took to stroking it when she had something smart to say.

And she shampooed it and she conditioned it and she kept it very prim

She stood right up to the mirror when she gave her beard a trim.

Now I know that this sounds funny and I know that it sounds weird,

But I woke to find one morning that my mum had grown a beard.

And she didn’t seem too bothered when we went out to the shops,

She just laughed and carried on when people gave her funny looks.

We walked down the fresh fruit aisle and I collapsed with despair

When I saw a friend from school was also shopping there.

And I tried to disguise it and I tried to turn and run,

But before I could prevent it, my friend turned and saw my mum -

And I know that this sounds funny and I know that it sounds weird,

But I looked up and I saw my friend’s mum also had a beard!

It was short and very orange and curly ’round her ears

And she looked very pleased indeed as she picked up a bag of pears.

My friends mum and my mum waved as they walked by

And they spent a while chatting about the products they could try

To make their beards more luscious, more luxurious and thick

And how to wash out gum and jam and things that tend to stick.

And I know that this sounds funny, I know that this sounds weird,

But all the mums in town had started to grow beards.

They set up their own committees and the Bearded Ladies Club,

And they left us instructions on cooking our own grub

Because they had got together and they made it very clear

That they were sick of wearing aprons and being called ‘dear’.

They were sick of washing dishes and hoovering the stairs,

Tired of wearing lipstick and running household affairs.
So I know that it sounds funny, and I know that it sounds weird

But I kinda sorta maybe almost like my mother’s beard,

And when I go to school, I’ve started to impress

Because my mum’s got a beard and now my dad wears a dress.

 

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