There is a new book on the market, perfect for the new mother, or mother to be. Probably for dads, too. It’s a very hilarious take on what your baby is probably thinking. Brought to you by the very funny Suzanne Weber, a performance poet who has already achieved lots of attention for her character, Anita Liberty, who is devoting her entire career to humiliating her ex-boyfriend.
TO WHAT WRETCHES HAVE I BEEN BORN? Revenge Poetry for Babies and Toddlers (Atria Hardcover; April 10, 2012) is it’s catchy title.
Just so you have an idea of what a revenge poem might be, could be, here’s a sample:
I Won’t Dance…Don’t Ask Me
These “Mommy and Me” classes?
The ones that you signed up for?
‘Cause you felt like it was something we needed to do?
‘Cause everyone else was doing it?
Mmm. Not so much.
Watching you dance to the Lollipop song
I wonder if you had ever any dignity.
Or, for that matter,
if you’ll ever
have any concern
for protecting
mine.
Or the one entitled…
iConfess
iHave
to
say
that
sometimes
iLove
your
iPhone
more
than
iLove
you.
iSorry.
So I caught up with Suzanne Weber from her home in LA. I asked how this book came about. She explained first about her career with Anita Liberty, and how she’d create these really hateful poems about her ex-boyfriend. She took it the next step when (back as Suzanne), she was watching a friend of hers, a new mom, swaddle her baby. “I was watching how she was swaddling the heck out this baby and I thought ‘‘What must this baby be thinking?’ Suzanne thought it out in her head and imagined the baby thinking, “Where are my hands…I just had them?”
Where Are My Hands??!!??
I had hands.
I know I did.
I was born with them.,
There were here this morning.
What have you done with them?!!??
For that matter, where are my arms?
Last thing I remember,
You lay me on a blanket
And just kept
Wrapping
And twisting
And tucking
And tightening
And then
I had no hands
or arms.
Come to think of it, can’t really see my legs or feet either.
And what exactly do you expect me to do in this position?
It’s not really conducive to anything except lying here.
What if I just fall asleep like this?
You’d like that, wouldn’t you?
Have this little limbless body fall asleep
So you wouldn’t have to think
About my needs and attending to them,
You might as well have gotten yourself a houseplant.
Or a throw pillow.
Or a pet rock.
Whatever. Fine.
I’ll sleep.
But only because
Trying to do anything else
Is
Pointless.
This book is written from the point of view of babies and toddlers as they might speak to their parents. Even non-parents can appreciate the humor if they think their friends and relatives are overthinking every little thing when it comes to their kids. (It also makes a great gift.)
After all, when reading these poems, you’ll find yourself nodding your head, thinking, “Yes, that is exactly what my baby is thinking.”
From her bio:
SUZANNE WEBER is a writer perhaps best known for creating and performing the character Anita Liberty, a performance poet who achieves notoriety by devoting her entire career to humiliating her jerk of an ex-boyfriend in public. Weber penned three books as Anita Liberty – HOW TO HEAL THE HURT BY HATING, HOW TO STAY BITTER THROUGH THE HAPPIEST TIMES OF YOUR LIFE and the young adult title, THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE (YEP, THAT WOULD BE ME).
Her short film, ANITA LIBERTY, was a Sundance selection and was co-written and directed by R.J. Cutler (The September Issue). A native New Yorker, Weber currently resides in Los Angeles where she writes television pilots and has started taking her coffee with soy milk. She lives with her husband and her daughter, a sassy little chip off her mother’s block of contempt.