A U G U S T 1 9 9 4 ![]() THE UNFROCKED GOVERNESS(for Elizabeth Bishop)by Peter Davison | |||||||||||||
![]() (For help, see a note about the audio.) Also by Peter Davison: You (2000) Best Friend (2000) These Days (2000) Falling Water (1998) No Escape (1997) On Mount Timpanagos, 1935 (1997) Like No Other (1997) "I Hardly Dream of Anyone Who Is Still Alive" (1995) The Passing of Thistle (1989) The Obituary Writer (1974) Gifts (1965) The Winner (1958) Go to: An Audible Anthology Poetry Pages |
Round of face, with dimpled chin and cheeks framed by her plumage of white hair, the poet took a cup of tea and spoke in stolid, undemonstrative discourse six inches short of gossip. She disdained the routine poets' talk of poetry and poets, what she read, what she disliked, even the poetry that she adored. Something beyond this flickered in her eyes, a glint of mischief or irreverence, neither disclosed to me, although much later I read of passions, fury, suicide, legendary benders lasting weeks. Ah, how could this dear old lady, orphaned as a child by madness, give hostage to it in the loves she chose, the fellow poets who, loving her work and loving her, went mad and died by striking at their enemies: themselves? And she? Observant of gentility, of the affections and obsessions, wrote with painful effort, though the consequence felt easy as the breath of summer. Pain dogged her life, yet she insisted: Write it! Copyright © 1994 by The Atlantic Monthly Company. All rights reserved. The Atlantic Monthly; August 1994; The Unfrocked Governess; Volume 274, No. 2; page 52. |
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