It's far easier to find a rhyme for 'fireman' than 'firefighter'. However, when once you have been carried by a strong woman firefighter[1], the former term feels disrespectful. I can read older words tat say "fireman" with no problem; in the words of essayist Anne Fadiman, "a book belongs to the reader as well as to the writer... [the writer] will forever retain the right to speak his own words and to mean what he wished to me, not what I would wish him to mean. But I will retain the right to recast Man Thinking in my mind as Curious People Thinking, because time has passed and the tent has grown larger."
The tent has grown larger. I'm in the throes of writing a poem for my brother's wedding. The first lines are currently "A woman, a man, and a pledge / Three things as old as mankind". I think they're beautiful lines (maybe too pretty?). But I was looking at them again today and ... nope, I can't do it. It feels disrespectful to me, of all of the people now fighting for the right to marry or stay married to their beloved. It feels like another betrayal of my uncle, now dying of cancer, who finally came out to my parents only this year because he was too weak to hide the Pride magazines before their visit. It feels like a betrayal of myself and what I believe, oddly, even though the lines are not at all untrue. After all, by anyone's estimate, most people are straight, and most straight people do marry sooner or later. "A woman, a man and a pledge" really are an institution as old as humanity. And if I read that poem at that wedding, no one would remark on the word choice (but I would never know who might have been pierced by the wording).
No, I can't do it. Have any of you faced similar issues, of finding familiar words are no longer big enough?
(Also, specific suggestions are welcome!!
)
[1] It was at rowing practice on a cold day. She was stroke, I was cox, which can be a chilly job because you just sit still and steer (and talk). We launched from a beach rather than a dock there and the coach wanted stroke to carry the cox into the boat so the cox wouldn't get wet feet.
The tent has grown larger. I'm in the throes of writing a poem for my brother's wedding. The first lines are currently "A woman, a man, and a pledge / Three things as old as mankind". I think they're beautiful lines (maybe too pretty?). But I was looking at them again today and ... nope, I can't do it. It feels disrespectful to me, of all of the people now fighting for the right to marry or stay married to their beloved. It feels like another betrayal of my uncle, now dying of cancer, who finally came out to my parents only this year because he was too weak to hide the Pride magazines before their visit. It feels like a betrayal of myself and what I believe, oddly, even though the lines are not at all untrue. After all, by anyone's estimate, most people are straight, and most straight people do marry sooner or later. "A woman, a man and a pledge" really are an institution as old as humanity. And if I read that poem at that wedding, no one would remark on the word choice (but I would never know who might have been pierced by the wording).
No, I can't do it. Have any of you faced similar issues, of finding familiar words are no longer big enough?
(Also, specific suggestions are welcome!!
)[1] It was at rowing practice on a cold day. She was stroke, I was cox, which can be a chilly job because you just sit still and steer (and talk). We launched from a beach rather than a dock there and the coach wanted stroke to carry the cox into the boat so the cox wouldn't get wet feet.
