Poems Upon Reading "Say Goodbye to the Toddler Stars of the Pandemic Office Zoom" in Bloomberg Law.

Abstract

I wrote the poems that comprise this work after reading a news article about the changing expectations of remote work and childcare. The article is ostensibly about negotiating the terms and expectations of remote work, yet it also read to me like a manual of maternal erasure. The message quickly evolves into making first care-work and then mothers disappear. The poems span from free verse, to limerick, to villanelle, concluding with a poem that, as its title announces, is not a poem at all. All are meant to speak(back) to discourses around mothering, care, and labor in the United States.