Loryn Brantz's 'Poems of Parenting' gives parents permission to laugh out loud

NPR's Book of the Day

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Books, Arts

4.2 • 672 Ratings

🗓️ 6 May 2025

⏱️ 12 minutes

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Summary

Parenting young children can be extremely taxing, but also beautiful – and hilarious. That nuance is at the core of Loryn Brantz's new poetry collection, Poems of Parenting. The illustrated poems are based on Brantz's popular series of Instagram posts that give parents permission to laugh. In today's episode, the artist and author shares a selection of poems with Here & Now's Deepa Fernandes. They also discuss Brantz's creative pivot from children to adults, the phrase "mom brain" and Brantz's relationship to her own children.

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1:06.5	Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbong. The other night, my toddler was up at 11, and then at 2 a.m. and then I fell asleep on the floor of her room, and then she woke up again, and I thought it was sick, so I picked her up and brought her downstairs until I realized it was only 3 a.m. It's one of those moments where all you can do is laugh, because I don't know, what else are you going to do?
1:28.8	Lauren Brantz's new book of poetry is tapping into that very feeling.
1:32.5	It's titled Poems of Parenting, and it's a collection that takes all the jumbles of feelings that come with parenting and turns them into something funny.
1:40.4	In this interview with Hereinaz Dippa Fernandez, Brantz talks about how this book came
1:45.6	about after one particularly rough day of parenting. That's coming up. In the U.S.,
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