No, I'm Not a Poet.

In the tenth book of Plato's Republic, Socrates warns against allowing poets admission to the ideal city. He says to Glaucon, "For if you grant admission to the honeyed Muse in lyric or in epic, pleasure and pain will be the lords of your city instead of law and that which shall from time to time have approved itself to the general reason as the best." Now, I'm no poet, and it's likely I'm no one's muse, but despite my poetico-philosophical mediocrity, I do have a penchant for Plato.

So, the title for this blog.

I am at this late point in the evening waiting for my soon-to-be-6-month-old, Liam, to wake up for his midnight snack. It's too late to attempt sleep now for as soon as ear meets pillow Liam will stir with pangs of hunger.  On most weekend nights my generous husband will wait up for the midnight snack so that Mommy can catch up on the sleep she lost during the week but alas, tonight he is asleep before me. I decided to write a blog instead and (of course) had to name it. I pulled my well-worn Collected Dialogues of Plato, the Hamilton/Cairns with the green cover that I used in graduate school, and serendipitously opened to this particular scene in the Republic. It was most certainly one of those grab-the-nearest-book-and-open-to-a-random-page situations.

Apropos? you ask. Well, in a way, yes and, in a way, no. I dedicated some of my graduate studies to Plato's scattered commentary on the poets and on poetry and still enjoy ruminating on the subject. But, in no way do I think that reading this blog would be for anyone what Plato thinks poetry would be to Kallipolis.

I intend to share my thoughts here. Some poetic, others philosophical. I'll share my photos, and talk about my family, my food, my varied research, and my life, and pass along the good things I come across to you. For now, since Liam has been fed and put back to bed I am going to head off myself, there are only a few precious hours for sleep before I wake with him once again.