Poetry Wednesday - That’s Not My Name
A poem about being mis-named
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Good day Red Cabbage Heads,
Sometimes I feel I shouldn’t read poetry only write it, cos I feel so small when I read some poetry, inadequate in my writing etc, and then I realise it’s just a way to learn and move forward. (And yes occasionally I read something and think, well that was a load of shite and assume I can do way better - but this is fairly rare.) Despite having had 10 of my poems accepted now, and one in proper print - which meant I could show it to my MIL who doesn’t have internet - I still don’t feel like a proper poet. But I will continue onwards and keep writing.
Today’s poem was written just last week at R and Js’ chess matches I was waiting for them to win. I like the quiet of chess matches though I have no want to play. For some reason my mind wandered and I remembered that I am a different person to different people. As usual you are getting a work in progress.
That’s Not My Name
The ladies at the cricket club call me Susan,
at that bastion of countryside genteel manhood
where bright whites are sullied brown and green
willow oil and red leather joining the stains
with full expectation of crisp freshness next match.
They like to call me Susan, can not remember Tamsin,
It’s not my name and and now I have
stopped correcting them, taking it on,
becoming this new and different person they assume I am.
The anonymity it gives me, she gives me, is freeing
I am untouched by gossip. unmarred by misdeeds,
Sassy esses Susan lives briefly within their kind minds
Once home I slip off her simpler persona like a warm
and well loved cardigan, hang her on a chair ready for
next time, for I don’t mind them calling me Susan. 
Ah, there we are. That’s all for this week, ta-ra Tx
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Love this Tamsin! Sassy esses Susan... brilliant!
I do like the idea that you slip out of the name Susan like a comfortable cardigan. I can relate to that. Our names are special, a gift from our parents. Back in 1962, my parents expected a boy (I was born way before sonograms), so if I was a boy I would have been named, Jeffery Scott. If a girl, my dad liked the name Roxanne. (Imagine my life with that name and the song Roxanne by the Police being played on the radio during my sensitive teenage years!) My mom named me Laura Jane. (Jane was her first name.) I was named after the 1944 movie "Laura" with Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, and Vincent Price. I was the only girl in school with that name. I used to hate my name until my mother told me this bit of trivia about my naming. When we were kids, my best friend's parents would call me "Lori," which of course, I found annoying. I would tell them, "My name is Laura, not Lori." My best friend would correct them every time, she was annoyed by it, too. They persisted, but they were always kind. I got used to it. I was only "Lori" in their their house. I met a young man, an exchange student from Taiwan who was staying with them for a summer, and he was very puzzled by their calling me "Lori," he even started to correct them. (Yeah, he had problems pronouncing my name, but he tried hard, and was close enough.) I told him, not to worry about it, it does no harm. As an adult, for over 20 years, I've had the same man come to service our boiler. He always spells my name "Lora" on the bill. (I guess my name is so hard for some people to get right, not all of them, just some of them.) I write the check, and my name, correctly spelled, is there, he still doesn't get it right.