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Nets to Catch the Wind by Elinor Wylie (1921) – full text

Elinor Wylie (1885- 1928) was an American poet and novelist who had her heyday in the 1920s and 1930s. Her poetry was considered by some a modern successor to the romantic poets, and she was compared favorably with John Donne and Percy Shelley. Following is the full text of Nets to Catch the Wind (1921), her first officially published collection.

In her lifetime, she was celebrated nearly as much for her ethereal beauty and charm as for her talent. Her love life was marked by heartbreak, multiple marriages, and affairs.

Born Elinor Morton, she was stalked for years by the much-older Horace Wylie, a married attorney and father of three. Given her ultimate renown under the name Elinor Wylie, she might have echoed the immortal line by Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre — “Reader, I married him” — but with greater scandal.

Wylie anonymously self-published her first collection of poems, Incidental Numbers, in 1912. Nets to Catch the Wind, her first traditionally published poetry collection, appeared in 1921. Some five subsequent collections were published in her lifetime (never in the best of health, she died at age 43), with more collections that came out posthumously.

Learn more about Elinor Wylie and read more of her poetry:

Poetry Foundation
The Other Pages
Listen  to Elinor Wylie’s poetry on Librivox

Here is the complete text of Nets to Catch the Wind (1921), which is in the public domain.

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Nets to Catch the Wind by Elinor Wylie

 

BEAUTY

Say not of Beauty she is good,

Or aught but beautiful,

Or sleek to doves’ wings of the wood

Her wild wings of a gull.

Call her not wicked; that word’s touch

Consumes her like a curse;

But love her not too much, too much,

For that is even worse.

O, she is neither good nor bad,

But innocent and wild!

Enshrine her and she dies, who had

The hard heart of a child.

 

. . . . . . . . . . .

THE EAGLE AND THE MOLE

Avoid the reeking herd,

Shun the polluted flock,

Live like that stoic bird,

The eagle of the rock.

The huddled warmth of crowds

Begets and fosters hate;

He keeps, above the clouds,

His cliff inviolate.

When flocks are folded warm,

And herds to shelter run,

He sails above the storm,

He stares into the sun.

If in the eagle’s track

Your sinews cannot leap,

Avoid the lathered pack,

Turn from the steaming sheep.

If you would keep your soul

From spotted sight or sound,

Live like the velvet mole;

Go burrow underground.

And there hold intercourse

With roots of trees and stones,

With rivers at their source,

And disembodied bones.

. . . . . . . . . . .

MADMAN’S SONG

Better to see your cheek grown hollow,

Better to see your temple worn,

Than to forget to follow, follow,

After the sound of a silver horn.

Better to bind your brow with willow

And follow, follow until you die,

Than to sleep with your head on a golden pillow,

Nor lift it up when the hunt goes by.

Better to see your cheek grown sallow

And your hair grown gray, so soon, so soon,

Than to forget to hallo, hallo,

After the milk-white hounds of the moon.

 

. . . . . . . . . . .

THE PRINKIN’ LEDDIE

“The Hielan’ lassies are a’ for spinnin’

The Lowlan’ lassies for prinkin’ and pinnin’;

My daddie w’u’d chide me, an’ so w’u’d my minnie

If I s’u’d bring hame sic a prinkin’ leddie.”_

Now haud your tongue, ye haverin’ coward,

For whilst I’m young I’ll go flounced an’ flowered,

In lutestring striped like the strings o’ a fiddle,

Wi’ gowden girdles aboot my middle.

In your Hielan’ glen, where the rain pours steady,

Ye’ll be gay an’ glad for a prinkin’ leddie;

Where the rocks are all bare an’ the turf is all sodden,

An’ lassies gae sad in their homespun an’ hodden.

My silks are stiff wi’ patterns o’ siller,

I’ve an ermine hood like the hat o’ a miller,

I’ve chains o’ coral like rowan berries,

An’ a cramoisie mantle that cam’ frae Paris.

Ye’ll be glad for the glint o’ its scarlet linin’

When the larks are up an’ the sun is shinin’;

When the winds are up an’ ower the heather

Your heart’ll be gay wi’ my gowden feather.

When the skies are low an’ the earth is frozen,

Ye’ll be gay an’ glad for the leddie ye’ve chosen,

When ower the snow I go prinkin’ an’ prancin’

In my wee red slippers were made for dancin’.

It’s better a leddie like Solomon’s lily

Than one that’ll run like a Hielan’ gillie

A-linkin’ it ower the leas, my laddie,

In a raggedy kilt an’ a belted plaidie!

. . . . . . . . . . .

AUGUST

Why should this Negro insolently stride

Down the red noonday on such noiseless feet?

Piled in his barrow, tawnier than wheat,

Lie heaps of smoldering daisies, somber-eyed,

Their copper petals shriveled up with pride,

Hot with a superfluity of heat,

Like a great brazier borne along the street

By captive leopards, black and burning pied.

Are there no water-lilies, smooth as cream,

With long stems dripping crystal? Are there none

Like those white lilies, luminous and cool,

Plucked from some hemlock-darkened northern stream

By fair-haired swimmers, diving where the sun

Scarce warms the surface of the deepest pool?

 

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THE CROOKED STICK

First Traveler: What’s that lying in the dust?

Second Traveler: A crooked stick.

First Traveler: What’s it worth, if you can trust

    To arithmetic?

Second Traveler: Isn’t this a riddle?

First Traveler:  No, a trick.

Second Traveler: It’s worthless. Leave it where it lies.

First Traveler: Wait; count ten;

    Rub a little dust upon your eyes;

    Now, look again.

Second Traveler: Well, and what the devil is it, then?

First Traveler: It’s the sort of crooked stick that shepherds know.

Second Traveler: Some one’s loss!

First Traveler: Bend it, and you make of it a bow.

    Break it, a cross.

Second Traveler: But it’s all grown over with moss!

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ATAVISM

I always was afraid of Somes’s Pond:

Not the little pond, by which the willow stands,

Where laughing boys catch alewives in their hands

In brown, bright shallows; but the one beyond.

There, when the frost makes all the birches burn

Yellow as cow-lilies, and the pale sky shines

Like a polished shell between black spruce and pines,

Some strange thing tracks us, turning where we turn.

You’ll say I dream it, being the true daughter

Of those who in old times endured this dread.

Look! Where the lily-stems are showing red

A silent paddle moves below the water,

A sliding shape has stirred them like a breath;

Tall plumes surmount a painted mask of death.

 

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WILD PEACHES

1

When the world turns completely upside down

You say we’ll emigrate to the Eastern Shore

Aboard a river-boat from Baltimore;

We’ll live among wild peach trees, miles from town.

You’ll wear a coonskin cap, and I a gown

Homespun, dyed butternut’s dark gold color.

Lost, like your lotus-eating ancestor,

We’ll swim in milk and honey till we drown.

The winter will be short, the summer long,

The autumn amber-hued, sunny and hot,

Tasting of cider and of scuppernong;

All seasons sweet, but autumn best of all.

The squirrels in their silver fur will fall

Like falling leaves, like fruit, before your shot.

2

The autumn frosts will lie upon the grass

Like bloom on grapes of purple-brown and gold.

The misted early mornings will be cold;

The little puddles will be roofed with glass.

The sun, which burns from copper into brass,

Melts these at noon, and makes the boys unfold

Their knitted mufflers; full as they can hold,

Fat pockets dribble chestnuts as they pass.

Peaches grow wild, and pigs can live in clover;

A barrel of salted herrings lasts a year;

The spring begins before the winter’s over.

By February you may find the skins

Of garter snakes and water moccasins

Dwindled and harsh, dead-white and cloudy-clear.

3

When April pours the colors of a shell

Upon the hills, when every little creek

Is shot with silver from the Chesapeake

In shoals new-minted by the ocean swell,

When strawberries go begging, and the sleek

Blue plums lie open to the blackbird’s beak,

We shall live well–we shall live very well.

The months between the cherries and the peaches

Are brimming cornucopias which spill

Fruits red and purple, somber-bloomed and black;

Then, down rich fields and frosty river beaches

We’ll trample bright persimmons, while we kill

Bronze partridge, speckled quail, and canvas-back.

4

Down to the Puritan marrow of my bones

There’s something in this richness that I hate.

I love the look, austere, immaculate,

Of landscapes drawn in pearly monotones.

There’s something in my very blood that owns

Bare hills, cold silver on a sky of slate,

A thread of water, churned to milky spate

Streaming through slanted pastures fenced with stones.

I love those skies, thin blue or snowy gray,

Those fields sparse-planted, rendering meager sheaves;

That spring, briefer than apple-blossom’s breath,

Summer, so much too beautiful to stay,

Swift autumn, like a bonfire of leaves,

And sleepy winter, like the sleep of death.

 

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SANCTUARY

This is the bricklayer; hear the thud

Of his heavy load dumped down on stone.

His lustrous bricks are brighter than blood,

His smoking mortar whiter than bone.

Set each sharp-edged, fire-bitten brick

Straight by the plumb-line’s shivering length;

Make my marvelous wall so thick

Dead nor living may shake its strength.

Full as a crystal cup with drink

Is my cell with dreams, and quiet, and cool …

Stop, old man! You must leave a chink;

How can I breathe? You can’t, you fool!

. . . . . . . . . . .

THE LION AND THE LAMB

I saw a Tiger’s golden flank,

I saw what food he ate,

By a desert spring he drank;

The Tiger’s name was Hate.

Then I saw a placid Lamb

Lying fast asleep;

Like a river from its dam

Flashed the Tiger’s leap.

I saw a Lion tawny-red,

Terrible and brave;

The Tiger’s leap overhead

Broke like a wave.

In sand below or sun above

He faded like a flame.

The Lamb said, “I am Love”;

“Lion, tell your name.”

The Lion’s voice thundering

Shook his vaulted breast,

“I am Love. By this spring,

Brother, let us rest.”

 

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THE CHURCH-BELL

As I was lying in my bed

I heard the church-bell ring;

Before one solemn word was said

A bird began to sing.

I heard a dog begin to bark

And a bold crowing cock;

The bell, between the cold and dark,

Tolled. It was five o’clock.

The church-bell tolled, and the bird sang,

A clear true voice he had;

The cock crew, and the church-bell rang,

I knew it had gone mad.

A hand reached down from the dark skies,

It took the bell-rope thong,

The bell cried “Look! Lift up your eyes!”

The clapper shook to song.

The iron clapper laughed aloud,

Like clashing wind and wave;

The bell cried out “Be strong and proud!”

Then, with a shout, “Be brave!”

The rumbling of the market-carts,

The pounding of men’s feet

Were drowned in song; “Lift up your hearts!”

The sound was loud and sweet.

Slow and slow the great bell swung,

It hung in the steeple mute;

And people tore its living tongue

Out by the very root.

. . . . . . . . . . .

A CROWDED TROLLEY CAR

The rain’s cold grains are silver-gray

Sharp as golden sands,

A bell is clanging, people sway

Hanging by their hands.

Supple hands, or gnarled and stiff,

Snatch and catch and grope;

That face is yellow-pale, as if

The fellow swung from rope.

Dull like pebbles, sharp like knives,

Glances strike and glare,

Fingers tangle, Bluebeard’s wives

Dangle by the hair.

Orchard of the strangest fruits

Hanging from the skies;

Brothers, yet insensate brutes

Who fear each others’ eyes.

One man stands as free men stand,

As if his soul might be

Brave, unbroken; see his hand

Nailed to an oaken tree.

 

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BELLS IN THE RAIN

Sleep falls, with limpid drops of rain,

Upon the steep cliffs of the town.

Sleep falls; men are at peace again

Awhile the small drops fall softly down.

The bright drops ring like bells of glass

Thinned by the wind, and lightly blown;

Sleep cannot fall on peaceful grass

So softly as it falls on stone.

Peace falls unheeded on the dead

Asleep; they have had deep peace to drink;

Upon a live man’s bloody head

It falls most tenderly, I think.

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WINTER SLEEP

When against earth a wooden heel

Clicks as loud as stone and steel,

When snow turns flour instead of flakes,

And frost bakes clay as fire bakes,

When the hard-bitten fields at last

Crack like iron flawed in the cast,

When the world is wicked and cross and old,

I long to be quit of the cruel cold.

Little birds like bubbles of glass

Fly to other Americas,

Birds as bright as sparkles of wine

Fly in the night to the Argentine,

Birds of azure and flame-birds go

To the tropical Gulf of Mexico:

They chase the sun, they follow the heat,

It is sweet in their bones, O sweet, sweet, sweet!

It’s not with them that I’d love to be,

But under the roots of the balsam tree.

Just as the spiniest chestnut-burr

Is lined within with the finest fur,

So the stony-walled, snow-roofed house

Of every squirrel and mole and mouse

Is lined with thistledown, sea-gull’s feather,

Velvet mullein-leaf, heaped together

With balsam and juniper, dry and curled,

Sweeter than anything else in the world.

O what a warm and darksome nest

Where the wildest things are hidden to rest!

It’s there that I’d love to lie and sleep,

Soft, soft, soft, and deep, deep, deep!

 

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VILLAGE MYSTERY

The woman in the pointed hood

And cloak blue-gray like a pigeon’s wing,

Whose orchard climbs to the balsam-wood,

Has done a cruel thing.

To her back door-step came a ghost,

A girl who had been ten years dead,

She stood by the granite hitching-post

And begged for a piece of bread.

Now why should I, who walk alone,

Who am ironical and proud,

Turn, when a woman casts a stone

At a beggar in a shroud?

I saw the dead girl cringe and whine,

And cower in the weeping air–

But, oh, she was no kin of mine,

And so I did not care!

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SUNSET ON THE SPIRE

All that I dream

    By day or night

Lives in that stream

    Of lovely light.

Here is the earth,

    And there is the spire;

This is my hearth,

    And that is my fire.

From the sun’s dome

    I am shouted proof

That this is my home,

    And that is my roof.

Here is my food,

    And here is my drink,

And I am wooed

    From the moon’s brink.

And the days go over,

    And the nights end;

Here is my lover,

    Here is my friend.

All that I

    Could ever ask

Wears that sky

    Like a thin gold mask.

 

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ESCAPE

When foxes eat the last gold grape,

And the last white antelope is killed,

I shall stop fighting and escape

Into a little house I’ll build.

But first I’ll shrink to fairy size,

With a whisper no one understands,

Making blind moons of all your eyes,

And muddy roads of all your hands.

And you may grope for me in vain

In hollows under the mangrove root,

Or where, in apple-scented rain,

The silver wasp-nests hang like fruit.

. . . . . . . . . . .

THE FAIRY GOLDSMITH

Here’s a wonderful thing,

A humming-bird’s wing

    In hammered gold,

And store well chosen

Of snowflakes frozen

    In crystal cold.

Black onyx cherries

And mistletoe berries

    Of chrysoprase,

Jade buds, tight shut,

All carven and cut

    In intricate ways.

Here, if you please

Are little gilt bees

    In amber drops

Which look like honey,

Translucent and sunny,

    From clover-tops.

Here’s an elfin girl

Of mother-of-pearl

    And moonshine made,

With tortoise-shell hair

Both dusky and fair

In its light and shade.

Here’s lacquer laid thin,

Like a scarlet skin

    On an ivory fruit;

And a filigree frost

Of frail notes lost

    From a fairy lute.

Here’s a turquoise chain

Of sun-shower rain

    To wear if you wish;

And glimmering green

With aquamarine,

    A silvery fish.

Here are pearls all strung

On a thread among

    Pretty pink shells;

And bubbles blown

From the opal stone

    Which ring like bells.

Touch them and take them,

But do not break them!

    Beneath your hand

They will wither like foam

If you carry them home

    Out of fairy-land.

O, they never can last

Though you hide them fast

    From moth and from rust;

In your monstrous day

They will crumble away

    Into quicksilver dust.

 

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“FIRE AND SLEET AND CANDLELIGHT”

For this you’ve striven

    Daring, to fail:

Your sky is riven

    Like a tearing veil.

For this, you’ve wasted

    Wings of your youth;

Divined, and tasted

    Bitter springs of truth.

From sand unslaked

    Twisted strong cords,

And wandered naked

    Among trysted swords.

There’s a word unspoken,

    A knot untied.

Whatever is broken

    The earth may hide.

The road was jagged

    Over sharp stones:

Your body’s too ragged

    To cover your bones.

The wind scatters

    Tears upon dust;

Your soul’s in tatters

    Where the spears thrust.

Your race is ended–

    See, it is run:

Nothing is mended

    Under the sun.

Straight as an arrow

    You fall to a sleep

Not too narrow

    And not too deep.

. . . . . . . . . . .

BLOOD FEUD

Once, when my husband was a child, there came

To his father’s table, one who called him kin,

In sunbleached corduroys paler than his skin.

His look was grave and kind; he bore the name

Of the dead singer of Senlac, and his smile.

Shyly and courteously he smiled and spoke;

“I’ve been in the laurel since the winter broke;

Four months, I reckon; yes, sir, quite a while.”

He’d killed a score of foemen in the past,

In some blood-feud, a dark and monstrous thing;

To him it seemed his duty. At the last

His enemies found him by a forest spring,

Which, as he died, lay bright beneath his head,

A silver shield that slowly turned to red.

 

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SEA LULLABY

The old moon is tarnished

With smoke of the flood,

The dead leaves are varnished

With color like blood,

A treacherous smiler

With teeth white as milk,

A savage beguiler

In sheathings of silk,

The sea creeps to pillage,

She leaps on her prey;

A child of the village

Was murdered to-day.

She came up to meet him

In a smooth golden cloak,

She choked him and beat him

To death, for a joke.

Her bright locks were tangled,

She shouted for joy,

With one hand she strangled

A strong little boy.

Now in silence she lingers

Beside him all night

To wash her long fingers

In silvery light.

. . . . . . . . . . .

NANCY

You are a rose, but set with sharpest spine;

You are a pretty bird that pecks at me;

You are a little squirrel on a tree,

Pelting me with the prickly fruit of the pine;

A diamond, torn from a crystal mine,

Not like that milky treasure of the sea

A smooth, translucent pearl, but skilfully

Carven to cut, and faceted to shine.

If you are flame, it dances and burns blue;

If you are light, it pierces like a star

Intenser than a needlepoint of ice.

The dexterous touch that shaped the soul of you,

Mingled, to mix, and make you what you are,

Magic between the sugar and the spice.

 

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A PROUD LADY

Hate in the world’s hand

Can carve and set its seal

Like the strong blast of sand

Which cuts into steel.

I have seen how the finger of hate

Can mar and mold

Faces burned passionate

And frozen cold.

Sorrowful faces worn

As stone with rain,

Faces writhing with scorn

And sullen with pain.

But you have a proud face

Which the world cannot harm,

You have turned the pain to a grace

And the scorn to a charm.

You have taken the arrows and slings

Which prick and bruise

And fashioned them into wings

For the heels of your shoes.

From the world’s hand which tries

To tear you apart

You have stolen the falcon’s eyes

And the lion’s heart.

What has it done, this world,

With hard finger tips,

But sweetly chiseled and curled

Your inscrutable lips?

. . . . . . . . . . .

THE TORTOISE IN ETERNITY

Within my house of patterned horn

I sleep in such a bed

As men may keep before they’re born

And after they are dead.

Sticks and stones may break their bones,

And words may make them bleed;

There is not one of them who owns

An armor to his need.

Tougher than hide or lozenged bark,

Snow-storm and thunder proof,

And quick with sun, and thick with dark,

Is this my darling roof.

Men’s troubled dreams of death and birth

Pulse mother-o’-pearl to black;

I bear the rainbow bubble Earth

Square on my scornful back.

 

. . . . . . . . . . .

INCANTATION

A white well

In a black cave;

A bright shell

In a dark wave.

A white rose

Black brambles hood;

Smooth bright snows

In a dark wood.

A flung white glove

In a dark fight;

A white dove

On a wild black night.

A white door

In a dark lane;

A bright core

To bitter black pain.

A white hand

Waved from dark walls;

In a burnt black land

Bright waterfalls.

A bright spark

Where black ashes are;

In the smothering dark

One white star.

. . . . . . . . . . .

SILVER FILIGREE

The icicles wreathing

    On trees in festoon

Swing, swayed to our breathing:

    They’re made of the moon.

She’s a pale, waxen taper;

    And these seem to drip

Transparent as paper

    From the flame of her tip.

Molten, smoking a little,

    Into crystal they pass;

Falling, freezing, to brittle

    And delicate glass.

Each a sharp-pointed flower,

    Each a brief stalactite

Which hangs for an hour

    In the blue cave of night.

. . . . . . . . . . .

THE FALCON

Why should my sleepy heart be taught

To whistle mocking-bird replies?

This is another bird you’ve caught,

Soft-feathered, with a falcon’s eyes.

The bird Imagination,

That flies so far, that dies so soon;

Her wings are colored like the sun,

Her breast is colored like the moon.

Weave her a chain of silver twist,

And a little hood of scarlet wool,

And let her perch upon your wrist,

And tell her she is beautiful.

 

. . . . . . . . . . .

BRONZE TRUMPETS AND SEA WATER—

ON TURNING LATIN INTO ENGLISH

Alembics turn to stranger things

Strange things, but never while we live

Shall magic turn this bronze that sings

To singing water in a sieve.

The trumpeters of Caesar’s guard

Salute his rigorous bastions

With ordered bruit; the bronze is hard

Though there is silver in the bronze.

Our mutable tongue is like the sea,

Curled wave and shattering thunder-fit;

Dangle in strings of sand shall be

Who smooths the ripples out of it.

. . . . . . . . . . .

SPRING PASTORAL

Liza, go steep your long white hands

In the cool waters of that spring

Which bubbles up through shiny sands

The color of a wild-dove’s wing.

Dabble your hands, and steep them well

Until those nails are pearly white

Now rosier than a laurel bell;

Then come to me at candle-light.

Lay your cold hands across my brows,

And I shall sleep, and I shall dream

Of silver-pointed willow boughs

Dipping their fingers in a stream.

. . . . . . . . . . .

VELVET SHOES

Let us walk in the white snow

    In a soundless space;

With footsteps quiet and slow,

    At a tranquil pace,

    Under veils of white lace.

I shall go shod in silk,

    And you in wool,

White as a white cow’s milk,

    More beautiful

    Than the breast of a gull.

We shall walk through the still town

    In a windless peace;

We shall step upon white down,

    Upon silver fleece,

    Upon softer than these.

We shall walk in velvet shoes:

    Wherever we go

Silence will fall like dews

    On white silence below.

    We shall walk in the snow.

 

. . . . . . . . . . .

VALENTINE

Too high, too high to pluck

My heart shall swing.

A fruit no bee shall suck,

No wasp shall sting.

If on some night of cold

It falls to ground

In apple-leaves of gold

I’ll wrap it round.

And I shall seal it up

With spice and salt,

In a carven silver cup,

In a deep vault.

Before my eyes are blind

And my lips mute,

I must eat core and rind

Of that same fruit.

Before my heart is dust

At the end of all,

Eat it I must, I must

Were it bitter gall.

But I shall keep it sweet

By some strange art;

Wild honey I shall eat

When I eat my heart.

O honey cool and chaste

As clover’s breath!

Sweet Heaven I shall taste

Before my death.

 

 

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Hungry Hill by Daphne du Maurier (1943)

Hungry Hill by Daphne du Maurier is a 1943 novel by the prolific British author and playwright. Her seventh novel takes the form of a multigenerational family saga taking place from 1820 to 1920.

Inspired by actual events and places, the story follows the fortunes of the Brodricks, Anglo-Irish landowners who inhabit Clonmere castle.

While Hungry Hill  hasn’t remained as well-known as some of du Maurier’s more famous novels, notably Rebecca, My Cousin Rachel, Jamaica Inn, Frenchman’s Creek, and The Scapegoat, it was successful in its time. It went through dozens of editions, and like many of du Maurier’s other works, it was adapted to film. However, the 1947 movie version was roundly panned.

Hungry Hill was re-released in 2008 by Virago Press. From the publisher:

“Hungry Hill is a passionate story told with du Maurier’s unique gift for drama. It follows five generations of an Irish family and the copper mine on Hungry Hill to which their fortunes and fates are bound.

‘I tell you your mine will be in ruins and your home destroyed and your children forgotten . . . but this hill will be standing still to confound you.’ So curses Morty Donovan when ‘Copper John’ Brodrick builds his mine at Hungry Hill.

The Brodricks of Clonmere gain great wealth by harnessing the power of Hungry Hill and extracting the treasure it holds. The Donovans, the original owners of Clonmere Castle, resent the Brodricks’ success, and consider the great house and its surrounding land theirs by rights.

For generations the feud between the families has simmered, always threatening to break into violence …”

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You might also like: 6 Essential Novels by Daphne du Maurier

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A 1943 review of Hungry Hill

From the original review in The Journal Herald – Dayton, Ohio, June 20, 1943. Reviewed by Margaret Ann Ahlers.

The author of Rebecca, Jamaica Inn, and Frenchman’s Creek has achieved a work of broad scope and dramatic power; she has created a fine novel on considerably larger scale than her previous ones.

Du Maurier writes with much skill; her characters are never hard to discern and in this book, she pictures the Irish countryside and the dominant snow-capped Hungry Hill with most enjoyable clarity.

Landowners arouse resentment

The Broderick family were aristocratic landowners whose arrogance and prosperity continually aroused the resentment of their tenants, the Donovans, who looked upon them as intruders. For generations, the poor Irish who lived in Doonhaven had considered that they themselves were the first holders of the land from which the Brodricks derived their wealth.

And while when face to face the Donovans showed proper respect for their landlord, it was the undercurrent of bitterness which eventually cropped out and made trouble. In the early years of the feud it was a Donovan who shot the father of John Brodrick, owner of the fine estate of Clonmere, one of the chief scenes of the story.

The old trouble flares again when at the very beginning of the novel, John Brodrick makes known his decision to open a copper mine in the side of Hungry Hill and take for himself and his family the hidden wealth he knew to be there.

The news spread fast and though the new mine would mean occupation  for all the men and boys of the vicinity, the announcement was not well received. When John Brodrick met Morty Donovan on the road the day the agreement was signed with his partner, Robert Lumley, Donovan was frank to say to his landlord that no good would come of the mine.

“You should have asked permission of the hill first, Mr. Brodrick,” he said. “Aye, you can laugh, you, with your Trinity education and your grand progressive ways, and your sons and daughter that walk through Doonhaven as though the place was built for their convenience, but I tell you and your mine will be in ruins, and your home destroyed, and your children forgotten and fallen maybe into disgrace. But this hill will be standing still to confound you.”

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Hungry Hill by Daphne du Maurier on Amazon*

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Wages from wealth

And so the mine on the side of Hungry Hill was started in spite of the opinions of the neighborhood. A Cornishman named Nicholson was secured as captain of the mine and with him he brought some of his own people to work as miners.

That furnished reason for trouble since the Donovans and their friends were bitter against strangers collecting wages from wealth, which, according to their views, belonged solely to them.

The Broderick mine gave up its rich copper and money poured into the family till, but some dark shadow hung over Hungry Hill, a dark shadow under cover of which, something always went wrong.

“Copper John” — as he came to be called — his daughters, Barbara, Eliza, and Jane, and his sons, Henry and John, were caught in an odd chain of circumstances which seemed to be the results of the Donovans’ hatred in league with the mountain’s own resentment against intrusion.

Tragic events occur, the mine cost the life of Jane, and Clonmere Castle was a smoldering ruins while Hungry Hill watched silently.

More about Hungry Hill by Daphne du Maurier

Review on dumaurier.org
Reader discussion on Goodreads
Daphne du Maurier’s Link to Hungry Hill

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The post Hungry Hill by Daphne du Maurier (1943) appeared first on Literary Ladies Guide.

10 Poems by Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda on Faith, Feeling, and Romance

Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda y Arteaga (March 23, 1814 – February 1, 1873), a Cuban-born Spanish writer, was considered one of the greatest romantic poets of the nineteenth century. Presented here are ten poems by Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda, both in their original Spanish (poemas) and in English translation, exploring her views on religion and romance.

Much of the themes in Avellaneda’s work focuses on her experiences living in a male-dominated society. She also wrote about themes of love, feminism, an evolving world, and her experience being exiled from Cuba.

Avellaneda’s love for literature started as a child. Growing up, her family’s slaves would do all of her household chores. This left her with a good deal of free time which she used to explore literature and read excessively. She also had brilliant tutors, one being Cuban Poet José María Heredia.

Her literary career began after she published her first poems in Cuba which had a profound influence on Cuban literature. Throughout the remainder of her life, she continued to write despite it being taboo at the time for women to write publicly. Today, her notable works have earned her the reputation of being the “epitome of the Romantic poet.”

 

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Al Partir (On Parting)

¡Perla del mar! ¡Estrella de Occidente!

¡Hermosa Cuba! tu brillante cielo,

la noche cubre con su opaco velo

como cubre el dolor mi triste frente.

Voy a partir… La chusma diligente

para arrancarme del nativo suelo

las velas iza y pronta a su desvelo

la brisa acude de tu zona ardiente.

¡Adiós, patria feliz!, ¡Edén querido!

Doquier que el hado en su furor me impela

tu dulce nombre halagará mi oído.

Ah, que ya cruje la turgente vela,

el ancla se alza, el buque estremecido

las olas corta y silencioso vuela.

 

On Parting

Sea Pearl! Star of the West!

Beautiful Cuba! your bright sky

the night covers with its opaque veil

How my sad forehead covers the pain.

I’m going to leave … The diligent mob

to tear me from the native soil

the sails iza and ready to wake up

The breeze comes from your burning zone.

Goodbye, happy country! Dear Eden!

Wherever the fairy in his rage impels me

Your sweet name will flatter my ear.

Ah, the turbulent candle cracks,

The anchor rises, the shuddering ship

The short and silent waves fly.

 

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A Una Mariposa (To A Butterfly)

Hija del aire, nívea mariposa,

que de luz y perfume te embriagas

y del jardín al amaranto vagas,

como del lirio a la encendida rosa;

Tú que te meces cándida y dichosa

sobre mil flores que volando halagas,

y una caricia por tributo pagas

desde la más humilde a la orgullosa:

Sigue, sigue feliz tu raudo vuelo.

Placer fugaz, no eterno solicita

que la dicha sin fin sólo es el cielo:

Fijar tu giro vagaroso evita,

que la más bella flor que adorna el suelo

brilla un momento y dóblase marchita. 

 
To A Butterfly

Daughter to the wind, snow-white butterfly,

Inebriate with perfume and sunlight,

Wandering from garden to amaranth,

And from iris to fiery rose alighting.

Blessed butterfly, you innocently sway

Over a thousand flowers charmed by your flight,

Each and every flower caressing in turn,

From the humblest to the proudest in the bower.

Continue happily on your swift rounds,

Fleeting, not eternal pleasure seeking,

For endless joy is only in Heaven’s gift;

Avoid a fixed course; wander, wander at will

For the most beautiful flower adorning earth

Shines for a moment, withers, bends and dies. 

 

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Feliz Quien Junto A Tí… (Happy Who Next to You…)

¡Feliz quien junto a ti por ti suspira,

Quien oye el eco de tu voz sonora,

Quien el halago de tu risa adora,

Y el blando aroma de tu aliento aspira!

Ventura tanta, que envidioso admira

El querubín que en el empíreo mora,

El alma turba, al corazón devora,

Y el torpe acento, al expresarla, espira.

Ante mis ojos desaparece el mundo,

Y por mis venas circular ligero

El fuego siento del amor profundo.

Trémula, en vano resistirte quiero…

De ardiente llanto mi mejilla inundo…

¡Delirio, gozo, te bendigo y muero!

 

Happy Who Next to You…

Happy who next to you for you sighs,

Who hears the echo of your sonorous voice,

Who praise your laughter worships,

And the soft aroma of your breath aspires!

Adventure so much, that envious admires

The cherub that dwells in the empyrean,

The troubled soul devours the heart,

And the clumsy accent, when expressed, expires.

Before my eyes the world disappears,

And through my light circular veins

The fire I feel of deep love.

Tremulous, in vain to resist you I want …

Of burning tears my cheek flooded …

Delirium, joy, I bless you and I die! 

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Literary Ladies Guide.

The Excellent Marriage of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas

Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, both Americans, met in 1907 as new expats in Paris. The two immediately bonded and remained lifelong partners until Stein’s death, with Alice serving as the doting wife, and later, keeper of the legacy.

“I may say that only three times in my life have I met a genius and each time a bell within me rang and I was not mistaken…The three geniuses of whom I wish to speak are Gertrude Stein, Pablo Picasso, and Alfred Whitehead.”

This is the meeting of Gertrude Stein (1874 – 1946) and Alice B. Toklas (1877 – 1967) as written in The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (1933). It is Gertrude’s writing, Alice’s voice, and their meeting — twenty-five years previously — recounted as both of them wished to remember it.

Whether true or not, the gravitas of the moment seems fitting. It was, after all, the start of one of the longest and most stable marriages in the history of Modernist literature: a partnership that was often framed in terms of the writer and her muse, and yet was a true partnership built on interdependence and lasting love. For almost forty years, they were never apart.

The dynamics of their relationship, played out in Gertrude’s writing and in the literary and artistic milieu of inter-war Paris, fascinated their contemporaries. They still fascinate and inspire today.

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Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas: An auspicious beginning

Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas met in Paris in September 1907, when Gertrude was 34 and Alice 30. Gertrude was already a fixture of Left Bank Parisian life: terrifying some, exasperating others, inspiring many. She had become well known not only for her impenetrable writing, but for championing lesser-known artists and collecting their works.

Together with her brother Leo, with whom she had shared a pavilion and adjoining atelier at 27 rue de Fleurus, she had amassed a collection of works by the likes of Cézanne, Matisse, and Picasso. As a consequence, the atelier had become ‘the’ place for artists to gather to meet each other, to talk, and to admire the paintings. Most of these visits were condensed into a Saturday evening — the famous Stein salon — but visitors were expected and (mostly) welcomed at all hours of the day.

Alice, however, had only just arrived in Paris. She had been persuaded into the trip by a friend, who thought she could do with a change from home life in San Francisco: Alice had been caring for her father and younger brother following her mother’s death.

She was a talented pianist who had been set on a promising concert career and, although she had abandoned her formal studies, her interest in the arts — in music, painting, theatre, and literature — remained unabated. She had also already met Gertrude’s brother and sister-in-law, Michael and Sarah Stein, who had visited San Francisco the previous year.

Just a few days after Alice’s arrival — perhaps out of curiosity, perhaps out of duty towards her brother’s friend — Gertrude called and invited her for a walk. Whatever her motives, the outing was a success. Alice later described the meeting in her own memoirs: “I was impressed with her presence and her wonderful eyes and beautiful voice — an incredibly beautiful voice … Her voice had the beauty of a singer’s voice when she spoke.”

With her short-cropped, iron-grey hair, sandals, and bulky frame clad in long robes, Gertrude was certainly an impressive figure. The contrast they must have presented walking the streets of Paris — for Alice was tiny, dark, mustached, and dressed in flower print dresses and elaborate earrings — must have been striking.

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Rhythm and routine

The two women formed an intense attachment from the beginning. There were further walks around Paris: Gertrude enjoyed wandering the streets and both women loved to shop for clothes. Alice, in particular, was attracted to the new Paris fashions.

As they walked, they talked about Gertrude’s writing. She had just finished her novel Three Lives and was working on The Making of Americans, but was facing an increasing lack of support from her brother. Leo was her closest sibling, the one who had always been there for her and she for him, and yet they were drifting further and further apart. Gertrude needed encouragement and approval, which Alice was happy to provide.

By December 1908, Alice had assumed the roles of editor, typist, secretary, general sounding board, and personal assistant. Each morning she would go to the rue de Fleurus to type Gertrude’s growing manuscript — no easy feat given the illegibility of Gertrude’s handwriting, which even Gertrude herself often struggled to read.

Gertrude would get up around lunchtime, having been writing for most of the night, and she would take coffee with Alice while Alice ate lunch. Sometimes in the afternoons, Alice would return to her own apartment, nearby on the rue Notre Dame des Champs, but more often the two women would take a walk before returning to the rue de Fleurus.

They were not yet lovers, and each evening Alice would leave. Gertrude would then work through the night, a habit she had developed as visitors to see the artworks had become more common. It was, she claimed, only after 11 p.m. that she could be sure the doorbell would not ring.

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Gertrice / Altrude

By the summer of 1910, Gertrude had “proposed” to Alice, and Alice had accepted. Alice moved into the rue de Fleurus in July and, shortly afterward, Leo Stein moved out. The difference in living arrangements led to a marked change in the style of Gertrude’s writing.

Alice’s roles as a sounding board and as capable editor (she was, by all accounts, more than willing to ask pointed questions and to engage in discussion over the finer points of structure and poetic nuance) gave Gertrude’s writing a second voice: this became more evident as time went on and Gertrude took Alice into her confidence more and more. In one of Gertrude’s notebooks, she even intermingles their names, coming up with ‘Gertrice / Altrude’.

Always, within all of her roles, Alice’s main focus was Gertrude, to attend to her needs and to make sure that she was heard. Gertrude acknowledged this devotion in her writing: in one of her first word portraits, Ada, she wrote, “Someone who was living was almost always listening. Someone who was loving was almost always listening…”

Their relationship also encouraged an exploration of sexuality. Their marriage was Gertrude’s primary inspiration, but she often described it in heterosexual terms with herself as “husband” and Alice as “wife.” Erotic and domestic lesbian themes were couched in cryptic language, perhaps to explore the limits of both the language itself and conventional gender roles, and perhaps to avoid the attention of the censor.

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Tender Buttons

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Tender Buttons

Tender Buttons, written in 1912, is perhaps the piece that most clearly shows the transition Gertrude was making in her work. The sexuality was clear even to those who didn’t know about her relationship with Alice: it was, according to Shari Benstock, a “grammar of lesbian domesticity.”

Later, in Didn’t Nelly and Lilly Love You (1922), Gertrude’s writing undertook a playful exploration of gender that was far more fluid than the roles she and Alice played out in their relationship. This story, of Gertrude and Alice’s birthplaces and their meeting in Paris, begins with the conventional “he” and “she” before morphing into the less clear-cut “we” and “I.”

The ambiguity was frustrating for many; having worked her way through Didn’t Nelly and Lilly Love You, Natalie Barney said tartly that she could never “make out whether they did or they didn’t — the chances being two against one they didn’t.”

 

A new kind of Stein salon

Both women were aware that, in America, they would not have been able to live out their relationship in nearly so much freedom as in Paris. Neither would Gertrude — cryptic language or not — have been able to explore it in her writing. However, they were still cautious about their choice of friends, and in the early years of their relationship privacy was important.

The famous Stein open house continued in a scaled-down form for several years, but by 1913 it was unrecognizable. Alice did not enjoy that form of entertaining and was never comfortable at large dinners and parties. She preferred smaller, more intimate gatherings, and gradually their social life adjusted.

Those who came to 27 rue de Fleurus on a Saturday now came by invitation only, singly or in pairs. They talked at length with Gertrude while Alice served cakes and tea, or elaborate dinners that she had prepared herself. If male visitors brought their wives, Alice took great pains to keep the women away from Gertrude, occupying them with talk of cooking and needlepoint while their husbands had the privilege of an audience with the writer herself.

Later, Janet Flanner — a regular attendee during the 1930s with her partner Solita Solano, said it was as if “Gertrude was giving the address and Alice was supplying the corrective footnotes.”

No one was allowed to intrude on Gertrude’s work, or to question the relationship of the two women too closely. Alice acted as a kind of indispensable gatekeeper, ensuring that Gertrude received the stimulus of company and conversation when she wanted it, and was left alone when she needed to be to write. It was a role that suited both of them.

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Alice and Gertrude with their beloved dog, Basket

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“Auntie”

This rhythm, like everything, changed with the outbreak of war in 1914. Initially, Gertrude and Alice traveled to Mallorca to sit things out in relative safety. But when it became clear that things were not going to be over quickly, they returned to Paris and volunteered for war work with the American Fund for French Wounded.

They even acquired a car for the purpose, a battered old Ford from Gertrude’s cousin in America which, when repaired and declared roadworthy, was christened “Auntie” after Gertrude’s aunt Pauline who “always behaved admirably in emergencies and behaved fairly well most times if she was properly flattered.”

Always together, and always in Auntie, they spent the next years shuttling supplies and soldiers to and from lines and billets. Gertrude’s driving left something to be desired, however. They had their only real arguments over her inability to reverse.

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Postwar Paris and artistic struggles

After the war, as American and British expatriates began to arrive in Paris in greater numbers, Gertrude found herself becoming something of a cult figure. Her work had been published in various of the little magazines, and her reputation was already legendary among the young writers and artists.

She and Alice began to be less restrictive in their social life: they frequented Shakespeare & Co., the new Anglo-American bookshop run by Sylvia Beach, and sometimes attended Natalie Barney’s Friday salons. New friends and old congregated in the winding Left Bank streets: Mabel Dodge, Mina Loy, Janet Flanner and Solita Solano, H.D. and Bryher, Margaret Anderson and Jane Heap.

Despite this, they took care to avoid close friendships with women of the Paris lesbian communities. Neither had ever been particularly demonstrative in public, and both were keen to avoid the kind of gossip and scandal that followed Natalie Barney (whose antics often shocked Gertrude, despite their friendship and general support of each other’s work).

Instead, Gertrude created her own circle of followers through her salon, mostly young and ambitious men such as Ernest Hemingway and Thornton Wilder. She felt she had no need for any other women, even in friendship. Alice provided her with everything she needed, and their life together was, by 1920s standards, relatively quiet: a marriage based on fidelity, their beloved poodle Basket, and regular trips to their home in the country (by this time, “Auntie” had been replaced with “Godiva,” although Gertrude’s driving never improved).

Gertrude continued to write but had little luck with book-length publications. Correspondence with various publishers and editors reveals the extent to which they were confused by her work: one example was Frank Palmer, of Frank Palmer publisher in London, who wrote in 1913 to say that he had “to confess to being as stupid and as ignorant as all the other readers to whom the book has been submitted.”

While Gertrude remained outwardly undaunted, privately she was despairing. Although the rejections may have actually contributed to her reputation during the rebellious 1920s — when, Bryher claimed, any writer who sold a manuscript to an established publisher had to move across the river to the Right Bank for their own safety — she understandably wanted recognition and understanding of her work.

One of her biggest champions, William Carlos Williams, even wrote a “Manifesto” in defense of Gertrude’s writing. But it was Alice who, out of belief in Gertrude and probably more than a touch of frustration, established the Plain Edition Press in 1930 in order to privately publish Gertrude’s work. The venture was financed by the sale of a Picasso.

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The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas

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The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas

In 1933, the publication by The Bodley Head of The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas marked a turning point in Gertrude’s life and career. She finally received her first book contract, and its success was such that a Pulitzer was predicted (although it never materialized).

The book was seen as a radical departure from the convention of biography, even though it was possibly the least radical of all of Gertrude’s recent writings, and its success also made Alice a household name. It is, perhaps, ironic that it was not Gertrude’s personal style which eventually brought her the recognition she so craved, but a work written in the ordinary, direct speaking voice of Alice Toklas.

In 1934 both Gertrude and Alice returned to America — the only time they did so — in order to promote The Autobiography. The press loved Gertrude and the book, although there was much debate about both Alice herself (the New York Post reported that, “…she brought with her Alice B. Toklas, her queer, birdlike shadow … her girl Friday talked about Miss Stein, when she talked at all …”) and Gertrude’s style of writing.

Most of the papers could not resist a parody of it, and the Detroit News announced that “A New York literary analyst professes to understand the poems of Gertrude Stein. It complicates the matter considerably, as we must now try to understand the analyst”

The Autobiography also had its detractors, mainly those who were portrayed in its pages and felt their depiction was unfair. A supplementary issue of transition magazine was published entitled ‘Testimony against Gertrude Stein’ to allow those people to have their say.

 

The World War II years

When war broke out again in 1939, there was no question of volunteering. Aged 66 and 63, and both of Jewish heritage, Gertrude and Alice retreated to their country home in the South, leaving the art collection stored under lock and key in their Parisian apartment.

In a later article for Atlantic Monthly magazine in 1940, Gertrude explained their decision to stay in France by saying that leaving would have been “awfully uncomfortable and I am fussy about my food.”

They managed to survive the hardships and rationing of the war years, supported by the villagers who kept their presence as Jews a secret. Some sources suggest that they were also helped by Gertrude’s friendship with Vichy government officer Bernard Faÿ.

It was certainly Faÿ’s influence that helped to save the art collection from Nazi looting while Paris was under occupation, and it was at Faÿ’s suggestion that Gertrude translated a selection of speeches by Marshal Philippe Pétain. Although destined for an American audience, these translations were never published.

The support for Pétain that Gertrude displayed in her introduction was unpalatable to American publishers, and in 1941 she stopped translating. Her main work from these years was Wars I Have Seen, a documentation of her observations and experiences throughout two world wars. It received mixed reviews, with many feeling that Gertrude’s political observations overreached her grasp and others denouncing her continued support for Pétain. In autumn 1944, they moved back to Paris.

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Carrying on alone

Gertrude died of cancer on 27 July 1946. Alice was left to carry on alone, and the journey wasn’t an easy one. While their marriage had never been recognized in the eyes of either the law or society in general, Janet Flanner commented that Alice, in her grief, “was the most widowed woman I ever saw.”

Over the years, Alice’s practical situation became more and more precarious. In increasingly poor health and almost blind, she returned to Paris from Rome one summer in 1961 to find the walls of her apartment stripped bare: Gertrude’s collection of paintings had been impounded.

The artwork was supposed to have been insurance for Alice in her old age, with Gertrude’s will stipulating that certain of the works could be sold in order to pay for Alice’s upkeep as well as for the publication of Gertrude’s work.

However, members of the Stein family had taken an inventory of the collection while Alice was away, discovered that several Picasso drawings were missing (having been legitimately sold for the purposes of maintenance), and requisitioned the lot, claiming that Alice’s absence had invalidated the will and endangered the paintings.

The long absence from Paris had also left her facing eviction: her landlord sued, claiming that the property had effectively been left vacant. With the help of friends (including Janet Flanner, who highlighted Alice’s plight in one of her “Letters from Paris” for The New Yorker) Alice was able to find a new home. She was philosophical about the loss of the paintings, saying only that, “I am not unhappy about it. I can remember them better than I can see them now.”

Living alone, she was cared for by devoted friends who believed that she deserved all the little extravagances they could afford her (such as strawberries from Fauchon’s — Janet even kept an empty Fauchon box handy so that it could be refilled, when money was tight, with cheaper neighborhood fruits instead).

In 1965, increasingly frail, she underwent cataract surgery. The bills were largely paid for by Gertrude’s old friend Thornton Wilder, and Virgil Thomson also helped out, joking that Alice was determined to have the surgery so that she “could see Gertrude clearly when the time came.” 

She also wrote several books of her own, including The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook in 1954, which combined recollections of her years with Gertrude with recipes and anecdotes about French cuisine (and famously included a recipe for hashish fudge), and her memoirs What Is Remembered.

Touchingly, her recollections end with Gertrude’s death, and with Gertrude’s famous last words: “What is the answer? I was silent, In that case, she said, what is the question?”

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Contributed by Elodie Barnes. Elodie is an author, poet, and artist with a serious case of wanderlust. She is originally from the UK, but has spent time abroad in Europe, the United States and the Bahamas.

When not traveling or working on her current projects — a chapbook of poetry, “The Cabinet of Lost Things,” and a novel based on the life of modernist writer and illustrator Djuna Barnes — she can be found with her nose in a book, daydreaming her way back to 1920s Paris. Visit her on the web at Elodie Rose Barnes.

 

Further reading

The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, Gertrude Stein: Penguin Classics, 2001
Women of the Left Bank, Shari Benstock: Virago, 1987
Paris Was A Woman: Portraits from the Left Bank, Andrea Weiss: Counterpoint 1995
Two Lives: Gertrude and Alice, Janet Malcolm: Yale University Press, 2007
Charmed Circle: Gertrude Stein & Company, James Mellow: Praeger Publishers, 1974
Everybody Who Was Anybody: A Biography of Gertrude Stein, Janet Hobhouse: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1975
Gertrude Stein in Words and Pictures: A Photobiography, Renate Stendhal (ed):  Algonquin Books, 1989

The post The Excellent Marriage of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas appeared first on Literary Ladies Guide.

Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda

Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda y Arteaga (March 23, 1814 – February 1, 1873), a Cuban-born Spanish writer, was considered one of the most romantic writers and greatest women poets of the 19th century.

Avellaneda was born in Santa Maria de Puerto Principe, currently known as Camagüey. Upon arriving in Cuba in 1905, her father, Manuel Gómez de Avellaneda y Gil de Taboada was a Spanish naval officer in charge of the port of Nuevitas.

Her mother, Francisca María del Rosario de Arteaga y Betancourt, was a criolla and a member of the wealthy Arteaga y Betancourt family, one of the most high-ranking families in Puerto Principe.  Gertrudis was the first-born of the couple’s five children, but only she and her younger brother, Manuel, survived past childhood.

 

Family and childhood 

Avellaneda, or “Tula,” as she was nicknamed, grew up spoiled, as the family’s slaves did all the household chores. This left her with a lot of free time, which she used to read excessively. She had impressive tutors as well, one being Cuban poet José María Heredia.

Her father passed away in 1823 when she was nine years old. Ten months later, her mother married Gaspar Isidoro de Escalada y López de la Peña, a Spanish lieutenant colonel stationed in Puerto Principe. Avellaneda was not fond of her stepfather as she felt he was too strict. Thankfully, she would only see him perhaps three months out of a year, as he was often stationed away from home.

At the age of thirteen, her grandfather arranged for her to marry a distant relative who was among one of the wealthiest men in Puerto Principe. In exchange for marrying him, her grandfather promised to give her a fifth of his estate. Two years later, at the age of fifteen, Avellaneda canceled the engagement, resulting in being cut out of her grandfather’s will. This upsetting experience fostered her deep resentment towards arranged marriages and patriarchal authority.

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Leaving for Spain

In 1836, there was fear of a potential slave rebellion in Cuba. As a result, Escalada had his wife sell her property and slaves, leave Cuba, and go to Spain. Avellaneda was in favor of this plan, as she wanted to meet her father’s family in Andalusia, a southern community in Peninsular Spain.

By April 9, 1836, the family started their journey to Europe via  Bordeaux, France, arriving in the city of A Coruña in Galicia, Spain, where they stayed for two years.

In Galicia, she met her fiancé, Francisco Ricafort, the son of Mariano Ricafort, a Capital-General of Galicia. Yet the couple never did marry, because Avellaneda wanted to wait until she was economically independent. This would prove daunting, as her stepfather withheld her inheritance.

 

Leaving for Madrid

Francisco was sent over to fight in the Carlist Wars, so Avellaneda decided to leave Galicia and go to Seville with her brother Manuel. This was the last time she would ever see Francisco, though Avellaneda was delighted to finally leave Galicia. She was often criticized by Galician women for refusing to do manual labor and for her passion to study.

After arriving in Seville, Avellaneda fell in love with Ignacio de Cepeda y Alcalde, a wealthy and educated young man. He became the focus of her writings, as she considered him her first real love. Between 1839 and 1854, there were a total of forty love letters which his widow later inherited and published after his death.

In July 1839, she wrote an autobiography, which biographers have perhaps over-relied on for information about her early life. Avellaneda wrote it intending to make a good impression on Cepeda. It was the second of four autobiographies she wrote in her lifetime.

Despite their immense love, the two did not get married. Cepeda felt that she was not rich enough and did not like her outspoken ways, a trait seen as too aggressive for women of her time. When their relationship ended, she left for Madrid.

 

Heartbreak at the peak of her career

Madrid was home to many of Avellaneda’s love affairs, some including prominent writers connected to Spanish Romanticism. In the course of her busy love life, she was engaged on and off several times.

One affair was with Seville poet Gabriel Garcia Tassara. They had a daughter out of wedlock in 1844. Tassara refused to acknowledge the baby as his, and she died at nine months, leaving Avellaneda heartbroken. 

After Tassara broke her heart, she met and married don Pedro Sabater, a wealthy writer and poet, on May 10, 1846. Shortly after their marriage, Sabater fell ill with what was believed to be cancer of the larynx and died, leaving Avellaneda devastated. After his death, she wrote Egilona, a play that didn’t receive positive reviews. 

In January 1853, Avellaneda attempted to enroll in the Royal Academy. A seat opened up after the death of her friend, Juan Nicasio. Even though many of its members respected her work, it was taboo for women to write publicly. Although the all-male academy members were impressed by her writing ability and works, in the end they refused to allow a woman into the Royal Academy.

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Returning to Madrid 

On April 26, 1855, she remarried colonel don Domingo Verdugo y Massieu. As a result of her husband’s injuries, the couple had to move from Madrid back to Cuba, their birthplace, in 1859. They had a close relationship with Francisco Serrano who, at the time, was the captain-general of Cuba.

Upon arriving in Cuba, concerts, music, and parties welcomed her. Verdugo’s health deteriorated soon after their arrival to Cuba and on October 28, 1863, he passed away. This left Avellaneda distraught, so she set off to visit New York, London, Paris, and Seville, and ultimately returned to Madrid.

 

Themes in Avellaneda’s work

Avellaneda’s writings were most popular in the 1840s and 1850s. Themes in her stories included love, feminism, and an evolving world. Her writing style was influenced by French, English, Spanish, and Latin American poets, especially  Hispanic poetry deriving from late neoclassicism and romanticism.

Her writings often reflected on her experiences and were infused with the bold attitude she had to adopt to navigate a male-dominated society. She also wrote of her exile from Cuba, and her bouts with depression. There are many other themes present in her works, including love, eroticism, neoclassical concepts, religion, philosophical meditations, and historical references. 

One of Avellaneda’s most famous and controversial novels was Sab, published in 1841. This novel spoke out against slavery and was banned in Cuba due to its unconventional approach to problems in society. The novel, along with many others, was considered scandalous because of themes of interracial love and divisions within society. 

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Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda page on Amazon*

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Awards and honors

In 1845, Avellaneda was awarded two prizes in a poetic contest organized by the Liceo Artístico y Literario de Madrid.

On August 20, 1895, The New York Times stated that “Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda, the great Cuban poetess, is declared by all critics to have no equal in modern times.” 

On June 4, 1896, the newspaper reports on a ceremony held in honor of Avellaneda given by Fidel Pierra: 

“Fidel Pierra, the chairman of the fair committee, described the life of the foremost Cuban poetess. No one in the whole Spanish, Parnassus said, was to be compared with Gertrude Gomez d’Avellaneda, who was born in Cuba in 1814, and did most of the beautiful work of her life there. Mr. Pierra’s appreciative tribute was the first which has been paid in the congress to the genius of a Cuban woman.” (Multiple News Items 12)

Avellaneda was one of the few nineteenth-century poets to be granted two laureates as a tribute to her talent. The first laurel crown was awarded to her in Madrid by Liceo artistico y literario in 1844 and the second was awarded in Havana by Cuban Liceo IN 1860. 

On August 25, 1900, The New York Times published an article under the title “Cuban literature” that suggested that Avellaneda was a female literary genius by emphasizing her precocity as a writer.

 

Final years and legacy of Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda 

In her final years, Avellaneda lived in Madrid. Soon after her brother Manuel’s death in 1868, she published her first volume of collected literary works. She decided to omit Sab and Dos Mujeres  because of the extreme controversy of these two works. On February 1, 1873, the prolific writer passed away in Madrid at the age of 58. She was buried in Seville next to her dear brother Manuel. 

In 2009, Cuban authorities requested that her remains be transferred to Cuba, but Seville and the Canary Islands firmly rejected doing so. Today, Avellaneda is widely viewed as the “epitome of the Romantic poet, the tragic heroine who rises to public acclaim yet, in private, is bitterly unhappy.”

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More on Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda

Major works

Sab (1841)
Cecilia Valdés  (1839)
Espatolino (1856)
Baltasar: A Biblical Drama in Four Acts and in Verse (1858)

Biographies

Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda by Hugh A. Harter (1981)
Fashioning Feminism in Cuba and Beyond: The Prose of Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda by Brigida M. Pastor (2003)

More information and sources 

Wikipedia 
Encyclopedia
Britannica
Salient Women
The Biography

Skyler Isabella Gomez is a 2019 SUNY New Paltz graduate with a degree in Public Relations and a minor in Black Studies. Her passions include connecting more with her Latin roots by researching and writing about legendary Latina authors.

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Eileen Chang

Eileen Chang, also known as Chang Ai-ling or Zhang Ailing (September 30, 1920 – September 8, 1995), was a Chinese essayist, novelist, and screenwriter. Although Chang’s somber love stories are widely recognized, her construction of an alternative wartime narrative is considered one of her most significant contributions.

Chang was born in Zhang Ying in Shanghai, China to a well-known family; her grandfather was a son-in-law to Qing court official Li Hongzhang. In 1922 when Chang was two, her family relocated to Tianjin. Soon after, her father introduced her to Tang poetry at the age of three. Her mother also introduced her to painting, piano, and English in her early years.

 
Early life

While in Tianjin in 1924, Chang’s father became addicted to opium and frequented prostitutes. As a result, her mother decided to leave to study in France with her aunt. During this time, Chang started school at the age of four where she excelled in English.

After three years in France, Chang’s mother returned to Tianjin in 1927 after her father promised to end his drug usage and affairs. They moved back to Shanghai in 1928 for a fresh start, but to no avail, the marriage ended in 1930. After their divorce, Chang and her younger brother, Zhang Zijing, were raised by their father.

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Education

At the age of ten, Eileen Chang’s mother renamed her Ailing in preparation for becoming a student at an English school. In 1937, Chang graduated from St. Mary’s Hall in Shanghai, an all-female Christian high school. Throughout her time in school, it was evident that she had a talent for literature, and had writings published in her school magazine. She read Dream of the Red Chamber, one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese literature, which later influenced her works throughout her career. 

Upon graduating, she contracted dysentery, an infection of the intestines. Rather than help her seek treatment, her father physically abused her and confined her to her bedroom for six months. Shortly after her eighteenth birthday, she ran away to live with her mother.

In 1939, Cheng was accepted to the University of London with a full scholarship. But with war rumbling in Europe, she was unable to attend and instead studied English Literature at the University of Hong Kong. There she met Fatima Mohideen, who would become a life-long friend. Chang was one semester short of earning her degree in December 1941, but when Hong Kong fell to the Empire of Japan, she was unable to finish.

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Starting a writing career

In 1943, Cheng was introduced to Zhou Shoujuan, a prominent editor. Then tweny-three years old, she showed him some of her written work and soon after, with Zhou’s commendation, she became the most promising new writer in Shanghai. 

Over the next two years, she wrote some of her most notable works, including Love in a Fallen City and The Golden Cangue (1943). She also wrote novellas and short stories that were collected in Romances (1944). It became an immediate bestseller in Shanghai and from there, gained traction with Chinese readers throughout the country. Chang  became a literary star.

 

Final years in China

In 1945, a collection of Cheng’s essays appeared as Written on Water. Her reputation began to diminish due to postwar cultural and political disorder. This worsened after the Communist takeover in 1949. In 1952, Chang left China for Hong Kong after realizing her writing career in Shanghai was over. 

Chang worked as a translator in Hong Kong for the United States Information Service for three years. During this time, she wrote The Rice Sprout Song, her first novel entirely in English. While in Hong Kong, she also translated numerous English books into Chinese, including books by Ernest Hemingway. In 1955, Chang left for the United States, never to return to China or Hong Kong again. 

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Marriages

In the early 1940s, Chang met her first husband, Hu Lancheng, who was 37 at the time. The two married in a private ceremony, Fatima Mohideen being the only one in attendance.

Some labeled Hu as a traitor because he was collaborating with the Japanese during World War II, but Chang remained loyal. Their marriage ended when Hu seduced a seventeen-year-old nurse while staying at a local hospital. Soon after Japan was defeated in 1945, he changed his identity, moved to the nearby city of Wenzhou, and married Fan Xiumei. Hu and Chang officially divorced in 1947.

After her divorce, Chang attended the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire. There she met and developed a relationship with American screenwriter Ferdinand Reyher of Philadelphia. The couple married in New York City on August 14, 1956, and moved back to New Hampshire.  Chang became a U.S. citizen in 1960 and went to Taiwan to seek more opportunities, returning after two years. Reher suffered several strokes in the course of the marriage and became paralyzed. He passed away on October 8, 1967.

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Themes in Chang’s work

Chang’s work focuses a great deal on the issues among men and women in love. Some critics consider her work to be among the best Chinese literature of the period. Her focus on everyday life in 1940s Shanghai and Hong Kong was noted for its absence of political subtext, something many writers of her time could not achieve. She also depicted powerlessness and the somber truth of human life in a smooth and graceful style.

 

Awards and honors

Chang has been listed as one of China’s four women geniuses, along with Lu Bicheng, Xiao Hong, and Shi Pingmei. Many films, television dramas, and theatrical plays were created based upon her works.

Director Ang Lee won his second Golden Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival for his film, Lust, Caution, a film based upon Chang’s short story.

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Eileen Chang page on Amazon*

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Later years

In 1969, Chang became a senior researcher at the Center for Chinese Studies of Berkeley where she conducted research on special terms used by the Chinese Communists.  She relocated to Los Angeles in 1972. In 1978, Crown Magazine published “Lust, Caution,” “Fu Hua Lang Rui,” and “Xiang Jian Huan.”

Chang passed away on September 8, 1995, in her apartment on Rochester Avenue in Westwood, Los Angeles. Her landlord became concerned after she had not answered her telephone for several days and discovered her lifeless body soon after. According to her death certificate, she died from cardiovascular disease. As per Chang’s will, she was cremated with no memorial service. Her ashes were scattered in the Pacific Ocean

 

Legacy of Eileen Chang

Many Taiwanese creative writers of the 1970s  were influenced by Chang. In the 1980s and 1990s, young women authors came together as a group inspired by her and her works. Many notable authors were inspired by Chang, including Wang Anyi, Su Tong, and Ye Zhaoyan.

Poet and Southern California professor Dominic Cheung said, “had it not been for the political division between the Nationalist and Communist Chinese, she would have almost certainly won a Nobel Prize.”

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More about Eileen Chang

Works in English translation

Half a Lifelong Romance (1948)
Little Reunions (2018)
Love in a Fallen City (1943)
The Golden Cangue (1919-1949)
Lust, Caution (2007)
Naked Earth (1956)
The Rice Sprout Song: a Novel of Modern China 
The Rouge of the North
Traces of Love and Other Stories
The Sing-song Girls of Shanghai
Written on Water
Sealed Off
Jasmine Tea

Films adapted from Eileen Chang’s novels:

Qing Cheng Zhi Lian (1984)
Yuan Nu (1988)
Hong Meigui Yu Bai Meigui (1994)
Ban Sheng Yuan (1997)
Lust, Caution (2007)

More information and sources

 Wikipedia
  Britannica
  New World Encyclopedia
Reader discussion of Chang’s books on Goodreads

Skyler Isabella Gomez is a 2019 SUNY New Paltz graduate with a degree in Public Relations and a minor in Black Studies. Her passions include connecting more with her Latin roots by researching and writing about legendary Latina authors.

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See more of Literary Ladies Guide’s author biographies.

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The Literary Love Story of Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning

While Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning are both remembered and revered for their contributions to English literature and poetry, their love story is also celebrated.

The tale of their courtship and marriage is a real-life Victorian romance that includes love letters, elopement, and the Italian adventure of a lifetime.

 
About Elizabeth Barrett

Elizabeth Barrett was born in 1806 and enjoyed a happy childhood growing up in a country house in Worcestershire. When she was fifteen, she developed a serious illness that may have been related to a spinal injury, and had lingering health issues throughout her life, possibly as a result.

Her love poems, including Sonnets from the Portuguese and Aurora Leigh, are the best know among her body of highly respected work. Here is a brief biography of Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

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Robert Browning

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About Robert Browning

Robert Browning was born in London in 1812. He attended the University of London for one semester and lived with his parents until he was in his mid-30s. In addition to several long poems, most of his plays were written during this early period of his life.

His early works were published with funding from his family. Today, he is particularly renowned for his dramatic monologues and talent for depicting characters in his works.

 

Letters of Admiration and Love

In 1844, Elizabeth’s second collection of poems was published and warmly received. The work included lines that praised Robert Browning. After reading the poems, Robert wrote a letter of thanks to Elizabeth on January 10, 1845, with the tantalizing line, “I love your verses with all my heart … and I love you, too.”

Their correspondence ensued until they met for the first time in the summer of 1845. Over the next several months, they became ever closer. Elizabeth remarked that she and Robert were “growing to be the truest of friends.” According to her, Robert’s best qualities were fortitude, integrity, and courage in adversity. In all, their courtship went on for twenty months, during which time they exchanged five hundred seventy-five letters.

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Secrets

Elizabeth’s and Robert’s courtship was kept hidden from Elizabeth’s overbearing father, and Robert’s parents had concerns about whether Elizabeth’s frail health made her a suitable match for Robert. Elizabeth’s doctors suggested that she move to Italy for health reasons, but her father refused to allow her to go. This refusal led the couple to take decisive action.

On September 12, 1846, they were secretly married at Marylebone Church. Elizabeth’s father wasn’t told, and she continued to live at the family home for a week after the wedding. Then, Elizabeth and Robert moved to Pisa, Italy to begin their life together.

When Elizabeth’s father eventually learned of his daughter’s marriage to Robert, he disowned his her, refusing to see her or open her letters to him. Fortunately, after some time had passed, most of Elizabeth’s family accepted her marriage to Robert.

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Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and son Robert Wiedemann Barrett Browning, 1860

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Life in Italy

After spending time in Pisa, Elizabeth and Robert settled in Florence, where they lived at Casa Guidi. Elizabeth’s health greatly improved, and the two poets composed what would later become some of their most well-respected and widely known works. Their son, Robert, was born in Florence in 1849.

 

Important Works

Robert and Elizabeth were inspired by their surroundings in Italy, and Elizabeth wrote a significant amount of poetry while living there. Her most famous work, Sonnets from the Portuguese, was a collection of love poems that she wrote in the first few years of her marriage to Robert. The sonnet that begins with her most famous line, “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways,” is part of this collection.

After she shared the sonnets with him, he remarked that they were “the finest sonnets written in any language since Shakespeare’s.”

Italy plays a prominent role in many of Robert and Elizabeth’s most memorable works from this period. Elizabeth was particularly interested in Italian politics, and she supported the unification of Italy. In “Casa Guidi Windows,” written in 1851, she describes hearing a child singing a song about liberty on the street outside her apartment. Scholars believe that the poem was intended to increase sympathy for the people of Florence.

Robert’s works from this period were inspired by the history of the  Italian Renaissance. For example, “Fra Lippo Lippi,” now considered one of his finest monologues, discusses the life of the title character, a Florentine painter during the Renaissance. This monologue was published in 1855 as part of Browning’s Men and Women, a collection that also included “A Toccata of Galuppi’s” and “Love Among the Ruins.”

Compared with Elizabeth, Robert wrote relatively little during their marriage. Men and Women didn’t have a very favorable reception, which was disappointing to him. Instead of writing, he tended to spend more time sketching or making clay models during the day.

Casa Guidi, where the Brownings lived in Florence

Photo: Italy Magazine

Sadness

After many happy years together at Casa Guidi, Elizabeth became seriously ill in the summer of 1861. She passed away in Robert’s arms on June 29, 1861. According to Robert, Elizabeth’s last word was “beautiful.”

Robert returned to London with their son in the autumn of that year. Overcome with grief, he spent most of his time alone, and he worked on preparing Elizabeth’s final work, Last Poems, for publication.

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Robert Browning in his later years

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Aftermath

Gradually, Robert returned to writing, publishing The Ring and the Book in 1868 and 1869. The work was immediately received with enthusiasm, and it established Robert’s reputation as a top literary figure of the era.

In his later years, he wrote works of incredible fluency. Many of these were dramatic poems or narrative poems that focused on contemporary issues or classical material. Some of his most enduring works from this period include “Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau,” “Red Cotton Night-Cap Country,” “Balaustion’s Adventure” and “Dramatic Idyls.”

Although he lived in London after Elizabeth’s death, Robert returned to Italy often. On a trip to Venice in 1889, he passed away after developing complications from a cold. Robert  Browning was buried at Westminster Abbey in London.

Legacy

In addition to being celebrated for their literary talents, Elizabeth and Robert are remembered as people who were deeply in love. As Sir Frederic Kenyon wrote, Elizabeth and Robert “gave the most beautiful example of [love] in their own lives.” The marriage of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning required courage and sacrifice, and they were willing to do whatever it took to build a beautiful life together.

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Quotes by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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Sources

Robert Browning 
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Love and the Brownings
Fra Lippo Lippi
A Florentine Reformation: The Brownings at Casa Guidi

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11 Poems by Angelina Weld Grimké on Love, Longing, & Race

Angelina Weld Grimké (1880 – 1958) was an American playwright, poet, and educator best known for being a figure in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. Following is a selection of poems by Angelina Weld Grimké on love, race, nature, and other subjects that preoccupied her.

Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Grimké was part of a family of biracial civil rights activists, and in earlier generations, abolitionists. Her father served some time as the Vice-President of the NAACP. Her great-aunts (including the similarly named Angelina Grimké Weld) were well-known abolitionists and advocates for women’s rights in the 19th century. They were significant influences for Grimké’s use of literature as a propagandist tool.

With a mixed-race father and white mother, Grimké was 75% white, but she identified as Black. After her parents separated when she was a child, she was raised by her father in Boston, where she attended school. As a woman of color, she was deeply invested in issues affecting the African-American community.

After completing her studies, she moved to Washington D.C. where she began connecting with fellow poet Georgia Douglas Johnson. Shortly after, she wrote her first articles and poems about racism and the black experience in America. After her father’s death, which devastated her, she moved to New York City where she lived fairly reclusively until her death. 

In Afro-American Women Writers (1988), Ann Allen Shockley wrote of Grimké’s poetic work:

As a poet, she became a familiar contributor to magazines and anthologies of the Harlem Renaissance. Sixteen of her poems appeared in Countee Cullen’s classic Caroling Dusk. They were also featured in the pages of The Crisis and Opportunity magazines, although none was collected for publication. The poems were conventional verses on nature, love, life, and death. She was considered an imagist poet in the mode of the “old lapidaries,” who wrote from her own private emotions about what she felt and saw in a sensitive, poignant, and beautiful way.

Gloria T. Hull, who exhumed Grimké from near literary oblivion, said of her work: “Grimké’s poetry is very delicate, musical, romantic, and pensive. It draws extensively on the natural world for allusions and figures of speech.” Hull found some of her unpublished poetry lesbian in nature. Of this, she wrote: “Most of these lyrics either chronicle a romance which is now dead or record a cruel and unrequited love.”

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The Black Finger

I have just seen a beautiful thing

Slim and still,

Against a gold, gold sky,

A straight cypress,

Sensitive

Exquisite,

A black finger

Pointing upwards.

Why, beautiful, still finger are you black?

And why are you pointing upwards?

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At April

Toss your gay heads,

Brown girl trees;

Toss your gay lovely heads;

Shake your brown slim bodies;

Stretch your brown slim arms;

Stretch your brown slim toes.

Who knows better than we,

With the dark, dark bodies,

What it means

When April comes a-laughing and a-weeping

Once again

At our hearts?

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Trees

God made them very beautiful, the trees:

He spoke and gnarled of bole or silken sleek

They grew; majestic bowed or very meek;

Huge-bodied, slim; sedate and full of glees.

And He had pleasure deep in all of these.

And to them soft and little tongues to speak

Of Him to us, He gave wherefore they seek

From dawn to dawn to bring unto our knees.

Yet here amid the wistful sounds of leaves,

A black-hued gruesome something swings and swings;

Laughter it knew and joy in little things

Till man’s hate ended all. -And so man weaves.

And God, how slow, how very slow weaves He-

Was Christ Himself not nailed to a tree?

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A Winter Twilight

A silence slipping around like death,

Yet chased by a whisper, a sigh,

a breath; One group of trees, lean,

naked and cold,

Inking their cress ‘gainst a

sky green-gold;

One path that knows where the

corn flowers were;

Lonely, apart, unyielding, one fir;

And over it softly leaning down,

One star that I loved ere the

fields went brown

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Tenebris

There is a tree, by day,

That, at night, Has a shadow,

A hand huge and black,

With fingers long and black.

All through the dark,

Against the white man’s house,

In the little wind,

The black hand plucks and plucks

At the bricks.

The bricks are the color of blood

and very small.

Is it a black hand,

Or is it a shadow?

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The Eyes Of My Regret

Always at dusk, the same tearless experience,

The same dragging of feet up the same well-worn path

To the same well-worn rock;

The same crimson or gold dropping away of the sun

The same tints, – rose, saffron, violet, lavender, grey

Meeting, mingling, mixing mistily;

Before me the same blue black cedar rising jaggedly to

a point;

Over it, the same slow unlidding of twin stars,

Two eyes, unfathomable, soul-searing,

Watching, watching, watching me;

The same two eyes that draw me forth, against my will

dusk after dusk;

The same two eyes that keep me sitting late into the

night, chin on knees

Keep me there lonely, rigid, tearless, numbly

miserable –

The eyes of my Regret.

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Death

When the lights blur out for thee and me,

And the black comes in with a sweep,

I wonder — will it mean life again,

Or sleep?

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You may also like:

12 Women Writers of the Harlem Renaissance

Women Poets of the Harlem Renaissance to Rediscover and Read

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The Puppet-Player

Sometimes it seems as though some puppet-player

A clenched claw cupping a craggy chin,

Sits just beyond the border of our seeing,

Twitching the strings with slow, sardonic grin.

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Vigil

You will come back, sometime, somehow;

But if it will be bright or black

I cannot tell; I only know

You will come back.

Does not the spring with fragrant pack

Return unto the orchard bough?

Do not the birds retrace their track?

All things return. Some day the glow

Of quick’ning dreams will pierce your lack;

And when you know I wait as now

You will come back. 

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Hushed by the Hands Of Sleep

Hushed by the hands of Sleep,

By the beautiful hands of Sleep.

Very gentle and quiet he lies,

With a little smile of sweet surprise,

Just softly hushed at lips and eyes,

Hushed by the hands of Sleep,

By the beautiful hands of Sleep.

Hushed by the hands of Sleep,

By the beautiful hands of Sleep.

Death leaned down as his eyes grew dim,

But oh! it was beautiful to him.

Hushed by the hands of Sleep,

By the beautiful hands of Sleep. 

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For the Candle-Light

The sky was blue, so blue that day

And each daisy white, so white,

O, I knew that no more could rains fall grey

And night again be night . . . . .

I knew, I knew. Well, if night is night,

And the grey skies greyly cry.

I have in a book for the candle light,

A daisy dead and dry.

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Learn more about Angelina Weld Grimké

See more of her poetic work at Academy of American Poets

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Skyler Isabella Gomez is a 2019 SUNY New Paltz graduate with a degree in Public Relations and a minor in Black Studies. Her passions include connecting more with her Latin roots by researching and writing about legendary Latina authors. 

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10 Classic Latina Poets to Discover and Read

There are so many more classic Latina poets to discover (or rediscover) than is possible to list in one post. But for those just getting acquainted with this area of Spanish literature, you’ll find a good starting point here. Shown at right, Rosario Castellanos.

Presented here is a sampling of poets whose works have been fairly extensively translated into English, or whose achievements in their home countries were significant. The Latina poets listed following represent Cuba, Puerto Rico, a number of South American countries, Mexico, and Spain.

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Delmira Agustini

Delmira Agustini (1886 – 1914) was a Uruguayan poet born in the country’s capital, Montevideo. Her first book of poetry was published when she was still in her teens. Many of Agustini’s poems dealt frankly with female sexuality, sensuality, and passion at a time when writing openly about such subjects was taboo. 

Agustini’s life ended tragically when her estranged husband murdered her. She was only 28, and yet had already achieved much in the field of poetry.

Major works included El libro blanco (1907; The White Book), Cantos de la mañana (1910; Morning Songs), Los cálices vacíos (1913; Empty Chalices). Posthumous collections include El rosarío del Eros (1924; Eros’ Rosary), and Obras completas (1924; Complete Works). A selection of her poems, mainly in Spanish, can be found here, with commentary in English.

 

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Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda

Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda (1814 – 1873) was born in Puerto Principe, Cuba, and made her name as one of the  great romantic poets and playwrights of the 19th century. Avellaneda’s timeless style and romantic vision combined with her experiences of personal suffering, resulting in some of the most heart-rending literature in the Spanish language.

A woman whose love life was as prolific as her pen, she wove her experiences into her varied works. For her earliest poems, she used the pseudonym of “La Peregrina” (The Pilgrim). Her first collection, Poesías líricas (“Lyrical Poems”) was published in 1841, and she continued to write and publish for the next several decades. Here is a selection of her poems in English translation.

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Julia de Burgos

Julia de Burgos (1914 – 1953), was a Puerto Rican poet and activist. She was also an advocate for Puerto Rican independence and served as Secretary General of the Daughters of Freedom, the women’s branch of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party.

When Burgos left Puerto Rico at the age of twenty-five, she vowed never to return. Though she kept her promise, her poetry invoked the social issues and the national identity of Puerto Rico.

The island’s history, including colonialism,  slavery, and oppression were woven into her poems. She also wrote of her personal struggles and complicated love life. Read more about Julia de Burgos and sample 6 poems about love and identity in both English and Spanish.

 

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Rosario Castellanos

Rosario Castellanos (1925 – 1974), author, poet, and diplomat, was one of Mexico’s most influential literary voices of the twentieth century. https://www.literaryladiesguide.com/a...

Her work dealt with issues of culture and gender in her home country and went on to influence contemporary Mexican feminist theory and cultural studies. Personal and cultural identity and the spirit of her home state of Chiapas are among the themes in her poetry. Her deep religious faith was also a theme in her poetic work.

Read a sampling of poems by Rosario Castellanos in English and Spanish.

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Nydia Lamarque

Nydia Lamarque (1906–1982) was an Argentine poet, activist, and translator, as well as a trained attorney. She was involved with the country’s feminist and socialist movements.

Lamarque translated the work of prominent French poets including Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Racine, and others into Spanish. Her own first collection of poetry, Telarañas, was published in  1925, and she continued to produce collections through 1951 with her final book, Echeverría el Poeta.

Finding Lamarque’s poetry online is a challenge, though there’s a selection of her poetry in its original Spanish here. 

 

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Gabriela Mistral

Gabriela Mistral (1889 – 1957) was a Chilean poet, educator, diplomat, and feminist. She was the first Latin American to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature (1945). The prize was awarded to her “for her lyric poetry which, inspired by powerful emotions, has made her name a symbol of the idealistic aspirations of the entire Latin American world.”

She said of her own need to write: “I write poetry because I can’t disobey the impulse; it would be like blocking a spring that surges up in my throat. For a long time I’ve been the servant of the song that comes, that appears and can’t be buried away.”

Sample nine poems by Gabriela Mistral about life, love, and death, in their original Spanish and in English translation.

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Rafaela Chacón Nardi

Rafaela Chacón Nardi was a Cuban poet and educator born in Havana, Cuba. In addition to her writing activities, she was a professor who taught at Escuela Normal para Maestros, Universidad de La Habana, and Universidad Las Villas.

In 1948 she published Journey to the Dream, her first volume of poetry. The work was reprinted in 1957 and included a letter that Chilean poet and Nobel Laureate Gabriela Mistral wrote in praise of Nardi’s work.

Though she authored more than 30 books including several volumes of poetry, very little of her work has been translated into English. However, if your Spanish is good, you can read a lovely selection of her poetry here.

 

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Mercedes Negron Muñoz

Mercedes Negron Muñoz (1895 – 1973) was a Puerto Rican poet, feminist, and essayist who was recognized as one of the most important postmodern writers of the island nation’s 20th-century writers.

Born in Barranquitas, Puerto Rico, Muñoz grew up in a family steeped in culture and politics. She emigrated to the U.S. in 1918, then returned to Puerto in 1932. In 1937 her first collection of poems were published, establishing herself as “Clara Lair” the pseudonym she would use going forward. Themes in her highly awarded work included themes of love, feminism, existentialism, and a touch of eroticism.

Like some of the others listed here, her work has rarely been translated, but here’s a small sampling of her poems in Spanish.

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Excilia Saldaña

Excilia Saldaña (1946 – 1999) was a poet, children’s book author, and academic. Born in Havana, she identified as Afro-Cuban. Though she was an esteemed and much-awarded Cuban cultural figure, during her lifetime, her work was mainly confined to a Cuban audience, and rarely translated.

This changed in 2002 with the publication of In the Vortex of the Cyclone: Selected Poems by Excilia Saldaña: A Bilingual Edition. The publisher wrote of it that “The collection emphasizes her construction of a personal and poetic autobiography to reveal the identity of one of the best Afro-Caribbean poets of the twentieth century.”

It’s exceedingly rare to find Saldaña’s poetry in translation (or even in its original Spanish, for that matter) online, so the best resource continues to be the In the Vortex of the Cyclone.

 

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María Elena Walsh

María Elena Walsh (1930 –  2011) was an Argentine poet, novelist, playwright, and musician. She was widely known for books and songs for children and used her work to express her political beliefs. In the era of the Argentine military dictatorship (1976 – 1983),  her song, “Oración a la Justicia” was adopted as a civil rights anthem. She was a staunch feminist and lived with her female partner until her death at age 80.

Born in Buenos Aires, Walsh was partly of Irish descent. She had her first poem published at age 15 and from then on, devoted her career to creating poetry and lyrics for readers and listeners of all ages. This multitalented artist deserves wider recognition. Here’s a small sampling of Walsh’s poems translated into English.

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Find more in

10 Classic Cuban Women Authors to Discover

 

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12 Essential Works of Classic Feminist Fiction

Here are 12 essential works of classic feminist fiction — according to Literary Ladies’ Guide. Some of the books listed were considered daring (and sometimes shocking) in their time. Because of the courage and foresight of their creators, women writers today are freer to speak their truths — and to see them in print — than the authors highlighted in the list following.

These timeless classics have proven foundational for contemporary feminist novels. From Jane Eyre (1847), Charlotte Brontë’s gothic romance, through Octavia Butler’s Afro-futurist Parable of the Talents (1998), the books listed here feature heroines who continue to inspire and surprise. 

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Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (1847)

Jane Eyre (1847), Charlotte Brontë’s best-known novel, is the story of a young woman of humble means and lonely upbringing who searches for love and a sense of belonging while preserving her independence. The book sparked a fair amount of controversy when first published, which was fueled by critics and the public suspecting that “Currer Bell” (the author’s ambiguous pseudonym) was a woman.

An avowedly feminist work, Jane Eyre also fits into the genre of gothic novel due to that pesky little detail of Mr. Rochester’s mad wife locked away in an attic. Jane’s strength, integrity, and determination to make her own way in the world has spoken to generations of readers.

 

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The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë (1848)

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall was published under Anne Brontë’s pseudonym, Acton Bell. Like her older sister Charlotte’s Jane Eyre, it’s now considered among the earliest of feminist novels.

The novel’s heroine, Helen Graham, fled her abusive husband,  lived on her own with her young son, and was making a living as an artist. Taken together, these circumstances were considered shocking at the time. Yet The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, more so than Anne’s quieter first novel, Agnes Grey (1847),  was an immediate success despite its unflinching look at the harms of alcoholism and abuse that arose from it. 

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Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (1868)

Louisa May Alcott expert Susan Bailey writes in How Louisa May Alcott’s Feminism Explains Her Timelessness, “It’s the simple and subtle messages inherent in her writing to children that continue to stand the test of time.  Just about every woman pioneer since Louisa’s era remembers reading Little Women and they point to Jo March as a pivotal inspiration.”

The story of four sisters and their beloved Marmee who draw strength from one another has proven timeless — with adaptations for the large and small screen appearing regularly. In addition to her literary pursuits, Louisa  was also known for promoting women’s rights and campaigning for women’s suffrage. She allowed her feminist views to  come through in the dialog between her characters, which is one of the great pleasures of reading Little Women and her other works.

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The Awakening by Kate Chopin (1899)

The Awakening by Kate Chopin, an 1899 novella telling the story of a young mother who undergoes a dramatic period of change as she “awakens” to the restrictions of her traditional societal role and her full potential as a woman. Many times, we find Edna Pontellier awake in situations that signify more metaphorical awakenings to new knowledge and sensual experience.

Consequently, Chopin’s work came under immediate attack when published and was banned from bookstores and libraries. The author died virtually forgotten, yet The Awakening has been rediscovered and holds a secure and prominent position as a watershed text in U.S. literature and feminist studies.

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My Brilliant Career by Miles Franklin (1901)

My Brilliant Career (1901) was Australian author Miles Franklin‘s first novel, written while still in her teens and published in her twenty-first year.

Sybilla Melvyn is a high-strung, imaginative girl from the Australian countryside. Convinced that she’s ugly and useless, Sybilla is surprised when a wealthy young man proposes marriage. What ensues is a slow-moving yet thoroughly satisfying coming-of-age novel that’s decades ahead of its time.

While this book rarely appears on lists of top classic feminist novels, it should  — and its staunchly feminist author deserves to be better known outside her native land. There’s a scene in which Sybilla bloodies a harasser that speaks to today’s #MeToo movement, with a satisfying vengeance!

 

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O Pioneers! by Willa Cather (1913)

O Pioneers! by Willa Cather is one of this esteemed American author’s most iconic novels. One of her earliest full-length works, it was published in 1913. Written in the kind of spare, lyric prose, the book explores ideas of community, family ties, destiny, and chance, this is a prime example of overlooked classic feminist fiction.

When Alexandra Bergson’s father is near death, he puts her in charge of the prairie farmland he loved deeply. The father trusted his daughter, not his sons, to carry out his life’s work in taming an unforgiving land. Even as a fictional device, this was a radical notion in 1913. Alexandra proves more than equal to the task, infusing the narrative with values of compassion and dignity. 

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Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1915)

Herland is a utopian novel by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Three American men are exploring an unknown continent, and in the course of their travels, they hear of a land where only women, female children, and babies live. It’s rumored that it’s a place where men might dare to enter, but never seem to come out. 

Reaching the aptly named “Herland,” the three men are captured and imprisoned. The female leaders don’t wish to harm them, but rather to study them, so that the two cultures (and genders) can learn from one another. We join the men on this journey with them as the narrator describes their interactions with the women, the land, and how each of them navigates and adjusts to their surroundings.

A bit clumsily written, Herland is nevertheless an ahead-of-its-time piece of speculative fiction that was followed by two sequels to form a trilogy.

 

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Their Eyes Were Watching God

by Zora Neale Hurston (1937)

Their Eyes Were Watching God is arguably Zora Neale Hurston‘s best-known work, and one that has become an acknowledged feminist classic.

Janie, the story’s heroine, searches for a sense of identity,  independence, love, and happiness over the course of twenty-five years and several relationships. Janie’s story has a few echoes of Zora’s own, especially the early portion, though it could be argued that the author never found true happiness when it came to love.

Critic Mary Helen Washington wrote of Zora’s masterpiece: “In 1937 came the novel in which Hurston triumphed in the art of taking the imagery, imagination, and experiences of Black folk and making literature.”

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Pavilion of Women by Pearl S. Buck (1946)

Pavilion of Women by Pearl S. Buck tells the story of the spiritual and intellectual awakening of Madame Wu, a pampered wife of the wealthy House of Wu. On her fortieth birthday, she announces to her husband that she wishes to withdraw from their physical life as a couple.

Madame Wu beseeches her husband to take a second wife to serve him as a concubine. She feels that this is his due as the patriarch of one of the China’s oldest and most prestigious households, and over his objections, carries out the arrangement herself. She then withdraws to her private rooms to read books and live a life of the mind, something she never had the luxury to do as a wife and mother. With another woman in the household, complications ensue, of course.

Pavilion of Women, an exquisitely told story of a woman coming into her own in a patriarchal society, is a gem to savor. Pearl S. Buck isn’t often listed in compilations of feminist authors and their works, which is curious, as she was a staunch promoter of equality for women.

 

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The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing (1962)

Doris Lessing, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2007, is considered one of the premier authors of fiction and nonfiction of the second wave feminist era. The Golden Notebook might just be her most iconic book, one of introspective feminism that challenged the prevailing notion of women’s roles midcentury society.

A 1962 review stated, “The Golden Notebook is far and away her most ambitious work to date — a long and complex novel which draws on all the talents and insights of this gifted woman …The publisher compares its heroine, Anna, with the ‘new woman’ of Ibsen and Shaw … unquestionably The Golden Notebook is going to be debated and analyzed by students of the novel for a long time to come.”

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Parable of the Sower (1993) &

Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler (1998)

When Octavia E. Butler‘s Parable of Sower (1993) begins, Lauren Olamina is a young Black woman just emerging from her teens, navigating the apocalyptic world of Los Angeles in the 2020s. A fight — and flight — for survival leads to her create a new faith called Earthseed, in hopes of repairing the world.

Lauren is once again at the center of Parable of the Talents, still fighting to salvage humanity. Now, she’s battling violent bigots and religious fanatics. Now a mother, her daughter Larkin (also called Asha Vere) becomes part of the narrative.

As richly imagined amalgams of dystopian literature and science fiction, the Parable novels feature the social commentary and prescience that Butler was known for. And Lauren emerges as a feminist symbol of courage and leadership that the real world could use now.

 

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Honorable Mentions

This list began with Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, featuring a young woman struggling to save herself, and ends with Lauren Olamina, whose task it is to save humanity in Octavia E. Butler’s Parable novels.

In lists of feminist classics, we often find The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (1963/1971), The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys (1966).

These books highlight the devastating effects of patriarchy on women who suffer from mental illness. It could actually be argued that it’s the patriarchy that exacerbates mental illness. While these are all great stories that I personally love and highly recommend, their heroines, at least in my mind, are driven to victimhood than emerging  as feminist heroines.

Other books that occasionally pop up in the realm of feminist fiction by more recently deceased authors include The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter, Dancing at the Edge by Ursula K. Le Guin, and The Women’s Room by Marilyn French.

It would be pretty overwhelming to list all the feminist-inclined authors and poets in this site’s list of biographies and on the wish list — that would cover most of them, honestly!

Here are a  few lists of essential contemporary classic feminist literature, some mixing fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and plays:

Feminist Literature
40 New Feminist Classics You Should Read
40 of the Best Feminist Books



 

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