Chekhov’s Mistess

October 12, 2007

Letter from Brooklyn: On Naming your children for Poets

 

Well, we’re up to ten ears in the Parr household, so allow me to introduce you to my sons Wyatt and Seamus. They were plucked from the womb three Thursdays ago, a few weeks early but thankfully healthy, weighing in at over six pounds each (and yes, that means my wife was carrying around more than twelve pounds of baby and a whole lot more in fetal luggage). Mom and babies are doing well, their dad praying for straight teeth and college scholarships – although at this moment a few hours of sleep might be nice – and big brother is affectionate and enthusiastic about his little brothers.

Because we named our first son Auden, many expected us to name the next two Shelly and Wordsworth or Kafka and Camus or something like that, so I thought it might be worth mentioning my thoughts on the subject. All three of my sons are indeed named for poets. Not so much in a zealous idolatry way, but if one is going to have some sort of theme or defined thought process behind naming their children, then why not the most noble – in my opinion – of occupations? First and foremost we like the sound of the words (although we nearly didn’t use Wyatt because of the proximity of the “t” to the “P” in our last name) and the general geography of their origins, Wyatt being English and Seamus being Gaelic for James.

While you probably know exactly who Seamus Heaney is, you might have to go back to your college poetry anthologies to remember Sir Thomas Wyatt (1504 – 1542) who was not a major poet in his time- none of his poems were published during his life and then at first in altered form – but a major figure in poetry, having introduced the sonnet form, among others, into English after studying under Petrarch in Italy. Michael Schmidt says of Wyatt, in his excellent book The Lives of the Poets, “…a man who belongs entirely to the renaissance, whose blood has been warmed by the the Mediterranean. Sir Thomas Wyatt is the first great English lyric poet.” He was also a minor historic figure, serving in King Henry VIII’s court and thought to be Anny Boleyn’s lover, evidenced in part by his sonnets and some time spent in the Tower (incidentally, one of King Henry’s wives was Catherine Parr, my great great great….just kidding).

So there you have it. Three boys, three poets; loose connections yes, but not necessarily tenuous. Auden at three is already big on rhyming as a game and wrote his first poem earlier this year (transcribed by me), so hey, you never know. Not sure my wife buys into the idea of having Poets’ name days in our household, but maybe that is a little over the top, no? Oh, and to answer your question: fraternal.

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