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Friday, April 5, 2024

Pictures of the Floating World by Amy Lowell

 Source of book: I own this

 

Anytime someone (usually right wing) makes the claim that back in the day, women were sweet and docile and submissive, I want to laugh in their faces. 

 

Because that is one of the biggest piles of bullshit ever - one that never made sense to me even when I tried to believe it as a kid. 

 

Women are human beings, and, just like men, they come in a wide variety of personalities. There have always been strong women who have been called loud, bossy, aggressive, unsubmissive, and all the other slurs that reflect what in men is called virtue. 

 

One of those truly larger than life women was Amy Lowell. Born in 1874, she was, from childhood, the sort that didn’t fit in. She was too “masculine,” she was not pretty, she was loud and assertive, and she was always opinionated. 

 

Her family didn’t let her go to college because they thought it was inappropriate for a woman, but she studied avidly anyway. She took up poetry in her 30s, feuded with Ezra Pound - although they came to admire each other, and is now considered one of the important poets of the Imagist school. Initially, she was forgotten in the aftermath of World War One, but eventually came to have the recognition she deserves. 

 

Lowell was short but had an imposing presence. She had hormonal issues which let to her being overweight her entire life (which unfortunately led to some deeply personal and misogynistic insults by critics and colleagues), she smoked cigars, and had a - shall we say - a reputation. It isn’t easy being a strong personality in the body of a woman. 

 

I love the quote from the obituary by Heywood Broun: “[I]nside everything was molten like the core of the earth ... Given one more gram of emotion, Amy Lowell would have burst into flame and been consumed to cinders.”

 

Oh, and she was also a lesbian, and wrote some rather sexy erotic poems to her partner, Ada Dwyer Russell. 

 

Side note: Ada Dwyer Russell was raised Mormon, although she stopped participating in the religion after her divorce from her husband. (Presumably after she realized she was lesbian.) What is rather fascinating, though, is that her father James, who was a mucky-muck in the LDS church, was forced to resign after he stated that he did not believe that same-sex sexual activity was a sin. So score one for supportive parents over 100 years ago. 

 

I have the selected poems of Amy Lowell in an American Poets Project edition, and chose to read from Pictures of the Floating World, which is probably her best-known work, published in 1919. 

 

I must say, I really enjoyed reading this collection. Lowell’s images are wonderful, and her use of language unique and thrilling. As with so many poetry collections, the difficulty was in narrowing down which ones I would feature. I would strongly recommend reading the rest for yourself. 

 

Let’s start with this tiny gem:

 

Desolation

 

Under the plum-blossoms are nightingales;

But the sea is hidden in an egg-white mist,

And they are silent.

 

To me, this is the power of the short poem: if done well, it can evoke an entire world. It literally enlists the reader’s own brain to paint the rest of the picture. 

 

There are a number of poems like this one. Lowell was fascinated by Chinese poetry, and also wrote adaptations of them. (I will probably read those for a future post.) The influence is clear in many of her poems. 

 

This next one is one of her love poems - not explicitly erotic, but with a few innuendos. I particularly love the way she describes the writing - who thinks of fly’s legs? And also the pain of squeezing love into inkdrops - the frustration of the distance relationship. 

 

The Letter

 

Little cramped words scrawling all over the paper

Like draggled fly’s legs,

What can you tell of the flaring moon

Through the oak leaves? 

Or of my uncurtained window and the bare floor

Spattered with moonlight?

Your silly quirks and twists have nothing in them

Of blossoming hawthorns, 

And this paper is dull, crisp, smooth, virgin of liveliness

Beneath my hand.

 

I am tired, Beloved, of chafing my heart against

The want of you;

Of squeezing it into little inkdrops,

And posting it.

And I scald alone, here, under the fire

Of the great moon.

 

My favorite of the erotic poems in the collection is this next one. As a man who rather enjoys worshiping the female body (so to speak), it very much spoke to my experience. Even for those who swing the other way, the imagery is gorgeous. 

 

The Weather-Cock Points South

 

I put your leaves aside, 

One by one:

The stiff, broad outer leaves;

The smaller ones,

Pleasant to touch, veined with purple;

The glazed inner leaves.

 

One by one

I parted you from your leaves,

Until you stood up like a white flower

Swaying slightly in the evening wind.

 

White flower,

Flower of wax, of jade, of unstreaked agate;

Flower with surfaces of ice,

With shadows faintly crimson.

Where in all the garden is there such a flower?

The stars crowd through the lilac leaves

To look at you. 

The low moon brightens you with silver.

 

The bud is more than the calyx.

There is nothing to equal a white bud,

Of no colour, and of all,

Burnished by moonlight,

Thrust upon by a softly-swinging wind.

 

Perhaps one more erotic poem? This one is about a more mature, companionate love, but one which has not lost its sexual connection. 

 

A Decade

 

When you came, you were like red wine and honey,

And the taste of you burnt my mouth with its sweetness.

Now you are like morning bread,

Smooth and pleasant.

I hardly taste you at all for I know your savour,

But I am completely nourished.

 

There are a number of poems about rain, and it was difficult to choose the best. I went with this one, but it was a coin toss. 

 

A Shower

 

That sputter of rain, flipping the hedge-rows

And making the highways hiss,

How I love it!

And the touch of you upon my arm

As you press against me that my umbrella 

May cover you.

 

Tinkle of drops on stretched silk,

Wet murmur through green branches. 

 

Okay, I have to do one more. 

 

After a Storm

 

You walk under the ice trees.

They sway, and crackle,

And arch themselves splendidly

To deck your going.

The white sun flips them into colour

Before you.

They are blue,

And mauve,

And emerald. 

They are amber,

And jade,

And sardonyx,

They are silver fretted to flame

And startled to stillness,

Bunched, splintered, iridescent.

You walk under the ice trees

And the bright snow creaks as you step upon it.

My dogs leap about you,

And their barking strikes upon the air

Like sharp hammer-strokes on metal.

You walk under the ice trees

But you are more dazzling than the ice flowers,

And the dogs’ barking 

Is not so loud to me as your quietness.

 

You walk under the ice trees

At ten o’clock in the morning.

 

These are just a few of the many delightful poems in this collection. I hadn’t really read Lowell before, and feel like I have discovered another favorite poet. 

 

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