I said I was keeping an eye on the Guardian vis-a-vis women poets. Well, I've had an insider tip-off about this Saturday's edition! Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy has commissioned a group of poets to write on the theme of ageing. Poetry School co-ordinator in Manchester - Linda Chase - is one of the poets who will be contributing a poem. Linda is a skilled poet who writes fantastic poems, full of insight and compassion. I'm looking forward to reading the supplement in Saturday's paper.
Here's another poem for International Women's Week. Being of a certain age, I love this beautiful poem by inspirational African American poet Lucille Clifton, who died in February
to my last period
well girl, goodbye,
after thirty-eight years.
thirty-eight years and you
never arrived
splendid in your red dress
without trouble for me
somewhere, somehow.
now it is done,
and i feel just like
the grandmothers who,
after the hussy has gone,
sit holding her photograph
and sighing, wasn't she
beautiful? wasn't she beautiful?
from 'Being Alive- the sequel to Staying Alive' edited by Neil Astley, Bloodaxe
I'm glad the F-word seems to be having a renaissance. Younger women appear to be embracing it and daring to call themselves feminists again, without the angst that's attached to it over the last couple of decades. Here's a poem for IWW by the Scottish poet Elma Mitchell (1919-2000). I can't find a picture of Elma anywhere, so I've started the post with 'Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose' by John Singer Sargent, as its name reminds me of this poem. If you click on the poem's title, there's a link to an analysis of it by Ruth Padel which appeared in her popular column in The Independent on Sunday.
Thoughts after Ruskin
Women reminded him of lilies and roses.
Me they remind rather of blood and soap,
Armed with a warm rag, assaulting noses,
Ears, neck, mouth and all the secret places:
Armed with a sharp knife, cutting up liver,
Holding hearts to bleed under a running tap,
Gutting and stuffing, pickling and preserving,
Scalding, blanching, broiling, pulverising,
- All the terrible chemistry of their kitchens.
Their distant husbands lean across mahogany
And delicately manipulate the market,
While safe at home, the tender and the gentle
Are killing tiny mice, dead snap by the neck,
Asphyxiating flies, evicting spiders,
Scrubbing, scouring aloud, disturbing cupboards,
Committing things to dustbins, twisting, wringing
Wrists red and knuckles white and fingers puckered,
Pulpy, tepid. Steering screaming cleaners
Around the snags of furniture, they straighten
And haul out sheets from under the incontinent
And heavy old, stoop to importunate young,
Tugging, folding, tucking, zipping, buttoning,
Spooning in food, encouraging excretion,
Mopping up vomit, stabbing cloth with needles,
Contorting wool around their knitting needles,
Creating snug and comfy on their needles.
Their huge hands! their everywhere eyes! their voices
Raised to convey across the hullabaloo,
Their massive thighs and breasts dispensing comfort,
Their bloody passages and hairy crannies,
Their wombs that pocket a man upside down!
And when all's over, off with overalls,
Quickly consulting clocks, they go upstairs,
Sit and sigh a little, brushing hair,
And somehow find, in mirrors, colours, odours,
Their essences of lilies and of roses.
Elma Mitchell
(From Staying Alive - real poems for unreal times
edited by Neil Astley, Bloodaxe)
