There is so much going on here that I am dizzy trying to absorb it all, but I would like to offer another Bogan poem that knocked me off my feet and then became a favorite to return to. To save time, I am copying from the Internet but it is in "The Blue Estuaries".
Medusa
I had come to the house, in a cave of trees,
Facing a sheer sky.
Everything moved, -- a bell hung ready to strike,
Sun and reflection wheeled by.
When the bare eyes were before me
And the hissing hair,
Held up at a window, seen through a door.
The stiff bald eyes, the serpents on the forehead
Formed in the air.
This is a dead scene forever now.
Nothing will ever stir.
The end will never brighten it more than this,
Nor the rain blur.
The water will always fall, and will not fall,
And the tipped bell make no sound.
The grass will always be growing for hay
Deep on the ground.
And I shall stand here like a shadow
Under the great balanced day,
My eyes on the yellow dust, that was lifting in the wind,
And does not drift away.
Louise Bogan
I am pretty sure that Louise Bogan was a poet I read as a teenager in The Ladies Home Journal, which was always available at my aunt's home, but not at ours. I do believe though that she was also included in anthologies which were werre availabe at home. In the small town where I grew up the school library was the only outside source for books and these were selectively chosen so as not to corrupt.
But Louise and Edna somehow slipped through all the filtering nets and found a home in my brain. Mostly, I think through LHJ.
The book "A Poet's Prose" proves that a poet can also write prose. I see that it is time for me to buy her biography.
I am sure that there are among the guests featured on this current discussion, women poets whose poems who inspire girls and young women who are seeking their identity. Isn't that an amaing thought!
Janice
Needless to say here for I have said it elsewhere, but just for the record, I am a nonregistered member of the Gail White fan club.
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