[Tim Murphy]

What a fabulous poem, Gail. Thanks for posting Yekaterina.

[Janice D. Soderling]

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.

[Rhina P. Espaillat]

The appreciation of Bogan's "Women" is a generational thing, I think. The poems spoke to me at once because I grew up surrounded by women who would not color outside the lines to save their lives--in an almost literal sense--and who expected the young (like me) to live the same way. It must be hard now for young women to imagine themselves in such a situation, or understand fully the frustration and irritation that Bogan is conveying in that poem.

There's a beauty by Elinor Wylie that conveys something very similar:

Let No Charitable Hope

Now let no charitable hope
Confuse my mind with images
Of eagle and of antelope;
I am in nature none of these.

I was, being human, born alone;
I am, being woman, hard beset;
I live by squeezing from a stone
The little nourishment I get.

In masks outrageous and austere
The years go by in single file,
But none has merited my fear,
And none has quite escaped my smile.

The body language that goes with this poem strikes me as something between an uptilted chin and an upraised finger. There's a lot of anger in it, under that courageous final smile, and a degree of contempt for the unnamed source of the hardness of life as she perceives it.

And of course there's Charlotte Mew in England, another woman who deserves to be read much more.

[Deborah Warren]

Gail:

Will you cudgel your brains and find that poem of yours that was in Light about 10 years ago about silk stockings?

[Leslie Monsour]

I'm sorrier than ever that I didn't think of devising the little interviews for Rhina and Gail when I started hosting this topic. I suddenly came up with the idea when it came time to post Deborah and Alicia. I liked it, and I've stuck with it. As a finale, Julie Kane and Susan McLean will be posted sometime next week. BUT, to have a better idea of where Gail and Rhina have sprung from, I'll just have to re-recommend Julie Kane's article on Gail in Mezzo Cammin, Volume 1, Issue 1; and my piece on Rhina in Mezzo Cammin, Volume 2, Issue 1 (in the archives, under "criticism"). To Rhina & Gail: Next time.

[Duncan Gillies MacLaurin]

Just to say how much I enjoyed rereading Gail's "The Gypsy Woman Tells Your Fortune". This seems timeless already. I'm worried about Frank though. Why did he type it out (with three misprints) when it's available on the net?

Duncan

[Gail White]

I appreciate Rhina's quotation of Elinor Wylie's poem, which is one of my favorites. In fact, if I ever assemble enough poems for another book, I plan to call it "Little Nourishment". (I live by squeezing from a stone/The little nourishment I get) - how true!

Deborah, I'm not sure what you mean about the silk stockings. The only thing I can ever remember writing about stockings was a steal from Herrick:

Whenas in silks my Julia goes
They cling unto her pantyhose.

[Deborah Warren]

Gail: That's it! Thank you! This little number is the quintessence of you.

[Anne Bryant-Hamon]

I feel so 'late to the party'. I want to comment on Gail's thread and some of the others and fully intend to do so by Christmas. November has been busy as hell for me and so I'm just now getting around to reading these threads.

Anne, feeling, as my great-aunt used to say, 'swimmy-headed'