dagblog - Comments for "Praise for the Foremothers"

Solace somewhat in the sense

Oxy Mora — Mon, 02 Nov 2015 23:35:21 +0000

In reply to I get Welty and Flannery O

Solace somewhat in the sense of time to think and coming to terms with life but the placid surface of the country is easily interrupted by, say, a bible salesman who gets a girl drunk and then steals her prosthetic leg. (O'Connor, Good Country People). The bizarre language of my mother arrived late in her life and shocked me.

I get Welty and Flannery O

PeraclesPlease — Mon, 02 Nov 2015 19:29:39 +0000

In reply to Nice blog, Doc. I can't say

I get Welty and Flannery O'Connor and Carson McCullers all run together for me, in a nice way. Well, nice perverse disjointed way. A bit like Faulkner without the overwrought vocabulary. Always something lurking under there, not the sin you've suppressed - the sins you live with every day. If this is solace, my mother must be one mean son-of-a-bitch and a helluva carney act.

Certainly, my own mother has

Doctor Cleveland — Mon, 02 Nov 2015 18:05:54 +0000

In reply to Nice blog, Doc. I can't say

Certainly, my own mother has been on my mind lately, Oxy.

That your mother had a first edition of Cather is hilarious and fitting. And certainly Cather, Welty, and Dickinson are all wonderful, powerful writers.

Nice blog, Doc. I can't say

Oxy Mora — Sat, 31 Oct 2015 16:46:01 +0000

In reply to Praise for the Foremothers

Nice blog, Doc. I can't say that my "formative" years were influenced by women writers but later when I began to read again and collect books, I was profoundly attracted to "Death Comes for the Archbishop" by Cather. My mother, who was great at these kinds of statements, when I talked enthusiastically about the book said, "Well of course, would you like my first edition?"

Taking a seminar on Emily Dickinson, I read Habeggers "My Wars are laid away in books" and Sewell's "The life of Emily Dickinson" both so detailed that studying her poetry together with the bios was nearly a transformative experience---especially given Habeggers rich 19th century, New England, context. Somewhat more to the point, I was astounded to discover that Dickinson and my mother had the same birth date. (There is a new biography by Connie Ann Kirk---going to read this.). I love the ground Emily Dickinson walked upon and have a measured drawing of her small writing table which I may live long enough to reproduce.

Eudora Welty's short stories always affect me in ways I can't describe, they just penetrate me.

I suppose I'm most satisfied of a long winter night to read PD.James. And Adam Dalgliesh is my kind of guy---immaculately constructed by a woman---a suspect comment coming from someone who is always told that "he's just like his mother". Dalgliesh always seemed an alter ego of Gervase Fen, first featured in Crispin's "The Moving Toyshop", one of my all time favorites---oops---and I was interested to see that Edmund Crispin was a favorite of James. "Death comes to Pemberley" is currently streaming on Acorn on line.

It's feels good to reflect for a few minutes on a subject like this, especially as a counterpoint to pulling fence and digging post holes by hand all week on this patch of sandy loam and red clay along the Red River in Texas. My women writers would have found solace here and so would have my mother. Are we men ever very far away from our mothers?

Your homage to Ursula K. Le

moat — Thu, 29 Oct 2015 01:26:36 +0000

In reply to Praise for the Foremothers

Your homage to Ursula K. Le Guin is striking to me because I come from it from at the opposite end of the scale. She taught me when I rarely had a job and was barely getting along. I was another kid wrapped in the cocoon of stories.

But there was this twist....

Emma Lazarus wrote that poem

trkingmomoe — Wed, 28 Oct 2015 07:43:55 +0000

In reply to Praise for the Foremothers

Emma Lazarus wrote that poem the inscription came from. "The New Colossus"

It was written to help raise money for the statue in 1883. It was found in a file by the statue's patron Gorgianna Schuylar.( I had to look up her spelling of her name.) She had it put on the pedestal of the statue.

Emma died before her poem was discovered in that file.

Isabella Singer the second wife of Isaac Singer the inventor of the Singer Sewing Machine was the model for the statue in France.

I used to include this information when I was giving quilting classes to keep things interesting.