Reading Ethel Williams Wright

I am reading, "Of Men and Trees" a book of poetry published by Ethel Williams Wright published in 1954.  The book--signed by the author--was lent to me by Joan Hightower, a fellow poet whom I met at a holiday party.  Joan is a sweet octogenarian and mother-in-law to my boss.  I'm halfway through the book, but I wanted to share a few short ones which I fell in love with at first read:

Change

This is not final;
This that is now, and I lent without choice
From opposite eternities,
To meet in time's inevitable plan,
Will not be soon, not that which follows this;
Whether it is what I want or must accept.
All is changing;
Moving forever from and toward the mystery
Of its beginning.


Wordless Depths

Each finds himself, sometime, within a sphere
Where only feeling is; and to many,
Having felt is quite enough.
Yet, others spend the poet's restless year
Up and down its inarticulate depth
Searching vainly every crevice
For a word.

"Of Men and Treens", Poems by Ethel Williams Wright, 1954 (Exposition Press)

Book Review: The Bell Jar

The Bell Jar was written by Sylvia Plath and published under a pseudonym in 1963, a month before she committed suicide. I read the paperback version published by Bantam Books in 1972, the year of my birth. The front cover tag line sensationalizes what the book is about, "The heartbreaking story of a talented young woman who descends into madness", but the quote from the New York Times book review printed on the back cover is much more matter-of-fact, "The Bell Jar is a novel about the events of Sylvia Plath's twentieth year; about how she tried to die, and how they stuck her together with glue."

I heard about The Bell Jar in high school or in my early college years, talked about like a rumor in the girls' locker room. I got the impression it was good to admire the writing, but not the writer. Plath wrote things about which most young women could relate, but you didn't want to relate too much to her writing - as if doing so would damn you to the same suicidal fate. I found the book at a used book sale last March (before the book diet). For 16 months the book sat in the closet of the bedroom I hope to one day turn into my study. Every once in a while I'd look in on it - and the other 6 or 7 books I bought that day - promising to lay my eyes on the pages inside. A writer friend suggested I read Sylvia Plath poems for inspiration, but I put it off. Then I took one of those infamous Facebook quizzes "Who Is Your Inner Crazy Bitch?" and voilá she turned out to be Sylvia Plath. Of course, this revelation was what prompted me to finally pick the book up off the floor.

What I absolutely love about this book and Plath's writing is her description of emotions in a way that is accessible intellectually, visually, tangibly, as well as emotionally. The reader follows Esther Greenwood's slow and steady descent into the depths of depression, but her feelings and thoughts seem not much different from feelings and thoughts of anyone else, including my own. Here are a few to illustrate:

Photo shoot during Esther's summer internship at the magazine:
"I didn't want my picture taken because I was going to cry. I didn't know why I was going to cry, but I knew if anybody spoke to me or looked at me too closely the tears would fly out of my eyes and the sobs would fly out of my throat and I'd cry for a week. I could feel the tears brimming and sloshing in me like water in a glass that is unsteady and too full."

Esther's first visit to her first psychiatrist, the "perfect", Dr. Gordon:
"I hated him the minute I walked in through the door. I had imagined a kind, ugly, intuitive man looking up and saying 'Ah!' in an encouraging way, as if he could see something I couldn't, and then I would find the words to tell him how I was so scared, as if I were being stuffed father and farther into a black, airless sack with no way out."

What I found most pleasantly surprising about the book was the portrayal of young women coming of age in the early 1950's, before the ideas of women's liberation and equality became fixtures of the American mindset. These women grew up trying to keep up with the Joneses, went to college or worked until they got their Mrs. degrees, were taught to do what was practical and expected of them, and thought they were happiest when their actions were approved by others.

Esther's description of the other young women at the summer internship
"These girls looked awfully bored to me. I saw them on the sunroof, yawning and painting their nails and trying to keep up their Bermuda tans, and they seemed bored as hell. I talked with one of them, and she was bored with yachts and bored with flying around in airplanes and bored with skiing in Switzerland at Christmas and bored with the men in Brazil."

Describing her feelings when people visited her in the mental health facility
"I hated these visits, because I kept feeling the visitors measuring my fat and stringy hair against what I had been and what they wanted me to be, and I knew they went away utterly confounded."

Esther's character questions and fights against societal expectations - from her interactions with the other young women during the internship, to her refusal to consider marriage proposal, to her resentment of the electric shock treatment prescribed by of her male psychiatrist, to losing her virginity to someone she did not love - and at the same time cannot seem to find her way out of the societal restrictions placed on her. In this way, Esther's feelings of being trapped under a "bell jar" not only describes her mental state, but the expectations of society at that time as well.

Twin Poets

Read an interesting article about identical twin poets in The New Yorker magazine on the bus. I thought I'd share: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/04/06/090406fa_fact_mead

(to read the whole article use my user name and password: drpamtaylor@yahoo.com)

Why I Love "The Sun"

There was a point in time where my mailbox was littered with magazines - weeklies, monthlies, bimonthlies, special issues - more than my two eyes (even with the aid of contact lenses) could read before the next batch arrived. So I made a conscious effort to cut back. I opted out of the killing of trees to support my information junkie habit by allowing subscriptions to come to their natural end and turning a blind eye to renewal notices. I whittled my subscriptions down to the four I thought most supported who I was - or at least the person I was trying to be: 1) The New Yorker, 2) Poet’s & Writers, 3) Yoga Journal, and 4) Black Enterprise. Alas, even these four magazines were too much. I replaced the hard copies of the last three with their electronic newsletters, and struggled to find time to read more than just the weekly fiction piece in the New Yorker. So when the idea to subscribe to The Sun came to me last May, I had to seriously question my motives.

I learned about the magazine in my weekly writing group (our fearless leader works there) where we wrote a few times on the "Reader's Write" topics, but really had no clue on what was in it. I took a leap of literary faith when I signed up for a year's subscription - and am so glad I did because each month I get to read things like this:

“The train shuttles past 125th Street and into a dark tunnel. There is just the feeling of forward momentum, the train car jostling on the tracks, and the sound of mechanical squealing. Then suddenly there is light again, the yellow surge of Grand Central ahead.” (from Boston to New York by Christina Fitzpatrick - March 2009 issue p. 25)

I read this passage about five times on the bus yesterday. Reading this paragraph brought me back to the countless number of times I have ridden the subway, LIRR, Metro North, and Amtrak in my lifetime. I felt like I was on the train - right there with the main character, which is what great writing should do - deposit the reader in the moment. Just about everything I've read this past year has done that for me - even the photo essays. And that's why I love the Sun!

Introducing. . .Pamela R.A.W.

This blog will host the two things that are on my mind the most - my writing and the great books I am reading. The poems have outgrown the NOTES section on Facebook and there are never enough characters to say everything I want to say about the books on my Virtual Bookshelf. Hopefully, Blogger/Blogspot will be the perfect space for this.

To kick us off, I will say a little about the books that are in arms reach:

1) The Good Parents by Joan London - I read the NYT review a few weeks ago and immediately placed a hold on the book at the Durham Public Library (on a book diet - will definitely blog about this later). I picked it up on 2/23 but haven't started it yet.

2) A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose by Eckhart Tolle - I started this book in early January, with the intention of reading a chapter a week. At that pace I should have been finished by now; I read/listened to Chapter 5 earlier today (I read along to the audiobook - it has really helped in remembering the messages). A few of my favorite quotes from this chapter are:

Thinking is no more than a tiny aspect of the totality of consciousness, the totality of who you are." (p. 130)

To see one's predicament clearly is a first step toward going beyond it. (p. 131)

An emotion that does harm to the body also infects the people you come into contact with and indirectly, through a process of chain reaction, countless others you never meet. There is a generic term for all negative emotions: unhappiness." (p. 136)

3) The Complete Poems: Anne Sexton - I was introduced to Love Poems by a writer friend and found the book of Anne Sexton's complete poems at my friendly neighborhood library. I'm skipping around this one - finished all the poems in Love Poems and have read the sections I, II and half of III of Mercy Street, a book of poems published after her death. I'll have to devote an entire blog on Anne Sexton. Her work is just that powerful.

4) The Witch of Portobello by Paulo Coelho - This was one of the last books I bought before I went on the book diet. Paulo Coelho's books simply resonate with something deep inside me. This book tells the life story of Athena through the eyes of the people who knew her - an interesting premise. I'll have to put this book on the back burner so I can start The Good Parents. In the meantime, here is the page 56 quote:

When we free ourselves, we are freeing all humanity.