This week: Louise Bogan Edited by: Stormy Lady  
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| This is poetry from the minds and the hearts of poets on Writing.Com. The poems I am going to be exposing throughout this newsletter are ones that I have found to be, very visual, mood setting and uniquely done. Stormy Lady |
Medusa
by Louise Bogan
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.
Portrait
by Louise Bogan
She has no need to fear the fall
Of harvest from the laddered reach
Of orchards, nor the tide gone ebbing
From the steep beach.
Nor hold to pain's effrontery
Her body's bulwark, stern and savage,
Nor be a glass, where to forsee
Another's ravage.
What she has gathered, and what lost,
She will not find to lose again.
She is possessed by time, who once
Was loved by men.
On August 11, 1897 the Bogan family welcomed daughter Louise Bogan into their family. The Bogan family lived in Livermore Falls, Maine. The family moved around a lot. Louise spent a lot of her childhood in working-class hotels. At a very young age Louise was witness to her parents constant fighting. Their rocky relationship made an everlasting impression on Louise. Most of their fighting was caused by her mother’s many affairs.
With the help of a family friend, Louise attended Boston Girls' Latin School for five years. This opportunity allowed her to get into Boston University. In 1916, Louise decided to leave school and get married. She married Curt Alexander, a corporal in the U.S. Army. This marriage was short lived. In 1917 she gave birth to Maidie Alexander. By 1918 she had left her daughter with family and had moved to New York to be a writer. Her husband died in 1920 leaving her a widow. She spent the next few years traveling.
In 1923 she returned to New York and published her first book of poetry “Body of This Death: Poems”. The same year her book was published she met the poet Raymond Holden. The couple had a two year courtship and they married in 1925. Four years later she published her second book “Dark Summer: Poems”, 1929. She was then hired to work for The New Yorker, where she worked for the next thirty-eight years reviewing poetry. Sadly Louise second marriage ended in divorce in 1937. It was around the same time as her divorce, that her third book was published, “Sleeping Fury.”
Louise published on last book of poetry in 1968, “The Blue Estuaries: Poems 1923-1968." In 1969 she retired from her job at the New Yorker. On February 4, 1970 Louise Bogan suffered a fatal heart attack at her home in New York City.
A Tale
by Louise Bogan
This youth too long has heard the break
Of waters in a land of change.
He goes to see what suns can make
From soil more indurate and strange.
He cuts what holds his days together
And shuts him in, as lock on lock:
The arrowed vane announcing weather,
The tripping racket of a clock;
Seeking, I think, a light that waits
Still as a lamp upon a shelf, --
A land with hills like rocky gates
Where no sea leaps upon itself.
But he will find that nothing dares
To be enduring, save where, south
Of hidden deserts, torn fire glares
On beauty with a rusted mouth, --
Where something dreadful and another
Look quietly upon each other.
Thank you all!
Stormy Lady
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The winner of "Stormy's poetry newsletter & contest" [ASR] is:
"In the Spirit of William Carlos Williams"
In the Spirit of William Carlos Williams
bleak
naked trees
wait white falling snow
near-bye I embark
into lantern-lit
passageways
pine scents
replace lavender
and honey
familiar Carols
siren
the coming of Christmas
the melodies provide
a compass
to a warm hearth
and holiday cheer
~~Judi Van Gorder
Honorable mention:
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Poetry: January 01, 2020 Issue [#9939]
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