[Michael Juster]

A fascinating poet named Julia Budenz died last week in Cambridge. I never met her, although we tried to get her to read for the Powow River Poets.

Julia, a former nun, abandoned most of her life to write a single poem for over forty years, a poem estimated to be about 1,700 pages long, called The Gardens of Flora Baum. It has a bit of a cult following (she is often compared to Emily Dickinson) even though most of the poem has never been published. It is a mix of free and formal verse, and sections such as the 15 sonnet sequence in Book III have caught the eye of Frederick Turner and other formalists.

Segments of the poem and a brief interview with her are available at a site called Poetry Porch. I'm dubious The Gardens of Flora Baum was "finished," but I don't think anyone really knows right now.

My guess is that you will see publication of her magnum opus in sections in the coming years as well as intense debate on its merits.

[ChrisGeorge]

Thanks, Michael. Julia Budenz is new to me and I am sorry to hear of her passing. I will look out for her magnum opus. Let's hope that someone will publish it.

Chris

[Roger Slater]

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ob...olumes/?page=2

[R. Nemo Hill]

Sounds fascinating, Michael.
Thanks for the link, Roger.

Nemo

[W.F. Lantry]

I didn't know of her either. But just cruising through, I found this poem. If there's more like that, I'm a fan...

Thanks,

Bill

********************************

HIEROS GAMOS

The term was forever
Forty years ago this very day.
The vows were final. The term was forever.

It was the marriage.
It was the marriage to the god.
It was performed in the chapel of stone.

The marriage, the chapel, the chant, the Latin,
The candle, the banquet, the sacrifice were facts
Acting, dazzling, entrancing together.

The incense went to heaven.
The ring of gold
Encircled less the finger than the soul.

The roses of the coronal shone white.
Beneath the bloom the fluent veil gleamed black.
Amid the stone the vows were loud.

Upon the crown the flowers withered.
Out of the vows the sound faded.
The words were canceled, deleted. The mind was changed.

The heart’s shout was louder.
The heart’s candle kept on burning.
The heart’s Latin lasts forever.


*******************

http://www.poetryporch.com/jb07.html

[W.F. Lantry]

Wow. The more I read, the more I like her.

Try going here, and skip down to March, 2003.

What a month of poetry! We should all be so blessed!

Thanks,

Bill

************************

"Only a list, and he not even first
But suddenly recalled as when we met.
I was just seventeen. The hero burst
Into my world. He made mind larger. Yet ... "