I, like many folks, first read Kate Baer when Joanna Goddard featured her on her "A Cup of Jo" blog back when time had meaning. I followed her on the gram and it only took about 5 seconds before I wanted to sit and have a coffee with her and ask kindly exactly was able to read my mind from her home state of Pennsylvania.
Her debut collection, What Kind of Woman contains more of the same mind reading. My actual copy of the book is pictured, bedecked with stickers, marking certain poems. I devoured this book in three sittings; forcing myself to pace the poems.
It's a collection that speaks to motherhood on the rawest level. Baer does acknowledge that she speaks with the privileges of being a white woman and so many of the poems contain the pain that the last four years have wrought, including immigration and school shootings. In "Back to School Shopping" /I do not tell you/I am afraid...How does a mother hold her terrors? How does/a school become a haunted place?/ In the poem, "What I Meant", /What I meant when I said 'I don't have time' is that/every minute that passes I'm disappointing someone/.
She isn't shy about being a plus size (whatever the hell that means anymore) woman and the poem "Like a Wife" had me chortling out loud. Nor does she shy away from the current political and social justice climate; I remember reading "Female Candidate" right after Elizabeth Warren dropped out of the primary race.
She talks about wifehood, the casual sexism of life, sexual assault and so much more. This is a book to buy for every woman in your life. For you to highlight your favorite poems and phrases until the spine becomes creased and pages dog-eared.
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