#i know this was very long and maundering and not very well written

[hairtusk]

Hi! Sorry if this is a weird question, feel free to ignore it. I thought to find to you because you are always level-headed and insightful in your literary analysis and I could use some help. I recently found out about Anne Sexton and the abuse she perpetrated against her daughter. I deeply love her as an author but now I don’t know how to reconcile this fact with how meaningful her work is to me. How do you do it? Do you have any suggestion? Thank you so much in advance. I love your blog.

Hello! Firstly, I'd like to thank you for how polite this ask is. Generally, people come into my inbox with all guns blazing at the mention of a controversial writer - this was genuinely a breath of fresh air.

Secondly, your question isn't a weird one at all, I promise - this was something I used to struggle with very deeply a few years ago.

I found out about the actions of Anne Sexton the very same day that I bought her collected works of poetry. Due to this, my perception of her work has always been coloured through this lense. At this time, I was quite mournful about this. Now, I think it was a blessing, because it taught me something very important.

In the western, Christian-influenced artistic tradition, we have an association between beauty and morality. A beautiful person is inherently a good person. A creator of beautiful art, therefore, must also be a morally good person, to have the capability to produce such work. Additionally, in the past decade or so, there has been a huge fixation on identity and biography when it comes to artists. Who a writer is as a person must heavily influence their work - it must be drawn from their life, from their morals, from their emotions. Poetry especially is relegated to a non-art; it becomes a memoir, true to life.

One of the most important things I've done as a reader in the last few years is to unlearn these internalised biases I held when it came to literature. The subjects and themes a writer tackles in their work are not reflective of the writer as a person. They are an artist, working on a craft, not a person in a confession booth. They are a flawed human being, not an untouchable angel being sang to by the muses. Keeping this in mind is imperative when I read literature these days.

Additionally, I've tried to be very careful about attaching affection to artists and celebrities because I am fond of their work. It's an old cliché, but an artist is not their work. They are separate entities. In the age of social media, when we have the-artist-as-consumable-product, the fictional protagonist as a mirror for the reader to project themselves onto, this line becomes blurred. It can still be blurry for me, even now. However, literary critical thinking asks us only to recognise that while a writer may inflict their flaws onto their work (i.e., a writer's prejudices making themselves known in their texts), they are, ultimately, entirely distinct from one another. We can love the work that an artist has created while recognising its flaws, and recognising that its creator was not someone we admire.

When everything is said and done, Anne Sexton is dead. She has been dead for nearly fifty years. Buying her books does not fund to her life, allowing her to continue the abuse she perpetuated. She does not continue to win awards. We can acknowledge that she created valuable, and beautiful, works of literature, while at the same time respecting her victim and listening to her story. We have to hold both of these things to be true at the same time, in order to have a clear picture of her. Moral purity is not something we can expect from any living human being. Writers are human: they can be admired for the work they create, but it isn't helpful to us or to them to place them on a pedestal.

[dietraumerei]

Christmas 2020/Silent Night

Aziraphale and Crowley keep Christmas in a year that’s difficult even for angels and demons.

-----

Have yourself a merry little Christmas, let your heart be light...

Aziraphale sipped his sherry and listened to the song, the soft melody a little scratchy from the record. He was sat in the window seat that looked out onto their front garden, and the little lane that ran by their house. There was no one out – it was grey and rainy, of course, as was expected for December in England. But this year it was empty for a different reason. No one was out because no one was allowed out. It wasn't safe; staying home, staying in one's 'pod' was safe this year, and Aziraphale meditated on the empty road, and the lights slowly coming on up and down the street. He did like the twinkly white lights; most years he and Crowley would go for a walk of an evening and admire the creativity of their neighbours. They had done so earlier in the week, and waved to their neighbours and chatted with one or two, everyone staying well apart in the little pools of light.

Of course neither of them could fall ill. But others could. Others had, in their own village even! And it was best to set an example, so they took walks together, wearing masks and only waving to friends instead of hugging them, and Aziraphale listened to old songs and sipped his sherry and watched the shadows of Christmas Eve appear as night fell.

He remembered when the song had been written. The longing in the whole country for war to end, for their boys to come home. (And their girls. Mustn't forget anyone in that hell in the trenches.)

Through the years, we all will be together, if the Fates allow...

Not this year, but another year. Another year, the streets would be busy and the grandkids would run off cookie and cocoa in the garden and get more cookies and cocoa from those nice gentlemen next door. And there would be a Christmas Market full of things absolutely no one had any interest in, but one had to pretend to admire it all, and anyway the mulled wine was delightful. As was both of them dodging the village vicar. Another year, possibly even next year.

Aziraphale sipped his sherry again. It was all so hard and so sad. Pandemics always were; something heavy and sorrowful came on the world, in times like these.

He just about didn't spill his sherry when the song abruptly changed to something loud and with quite a beat to it, and Crowley swept into the room, still wearing his Kiss The Cook apron.

“Stop yer maundering, angel, the puds are done!” he roared, and Aziraphale turned from the window, refusing utterly to smile.

“My dear, have you just sent me to Whackageddon?” he asked severely.

“You mean Whamageddon and wait how do you know about that?” Crowley demanded.

“I talk to the young people,” Aziraphale sniffed. “Sometimes.”

Crowley gave him a very dubious look.

“Well, I've got to distract that nice young Sam so I can miracle a few quid into their back pocket, all right?” Aziraphale said. “Their mum's still out of work, and with the little one...”

“Softy,” Crowley accused.

“It's merely my contribution to a little mutual aid,” Aziraphale said loftily. “Also, this music is unbearable, dear boy.”

“You're exactly what Kropotkin had in mind,” Crowley muttered, and snapped his fingers, and Aziraphale relaxed. There wasn't much music they could agree on, but Britten's Ceremony of Carols came close.

“Oh, lovely,” he said, and rose from the window seat. “Dinner?”

Crowley bowed and extended his arm, urging Aziraphale out of the living room. There was a lovely spread in their dining room, the wine already poured. The meat had rested and the Yorkshire puddings were made, and Crowley had used their good china. All in all, it was a delightful supper for two, tall white tapers cutting through the velvety winter dark.

Aziraphale sat and did the honours to serve them, breathing in the mouthwatering smells. They obviously didn't pray before meals or say grace or anything like that – wouldn't do to draw attention, and what on earth would either of them say? – but there was often a toast to start the meal. It usually came easily, but not this year.

“I don't know to what to say,” Aziraphale finally said. “It's all so awful, Crowley. It's too cruel.”

“The humans've been through bad times before,” Crowley said gently. “This isn't the worst.”

Aziraphale shook his head. “No, but it's the worst for a long time. What is there to drink to?” He cleared his throat. “Oh, I do beg your pardon,” he added, reaching for his handkerchief and dabbing his eyes. “I know there's good out there too. They're quite accomplished at that. Finding light in darkness and all.”

“'s'rather the theme of the season,” Crowley said. “It's not all darkness, angel. There's a vaccine.”

Aziraphale nodded, lips pressed together. Not quite a smile, but not crying, at least. “There are fewer statues honouring racists, I suppose.”

“There's people buying groceries for neighbours,” Crowley said.

“And mutual aid societies. Community pantries,” Aziraphale agreed.

“You know every time we go out, everyone's in masks now,” Crowley said. “People want to take care of each other.”

“And there are ways to keep in touch,” Aziraphale added. “Not that I understand any of them, but I have been told.”

Crowley smiled. “People are still having babies. It's not all lost, while there's babies.”

“Oh, my dear. There is so much new life,” Aziraphale said softly. “And new ways of living. There is so much to be born out of the sorrow.” He straightened his back and lifted his glass. “My dearest Crowley. To the world.”

“To the world,” Crowley said, and touched his glass to Aziraphale's, and they drank deep. And, ritual complete, the love of the world felt and acknowledged and added to, they ate.

[theotherpages]

National Poetry Month #6 - Campus Sonnets - Stephen Vincent Benét

I know I’ve commented before on today’s poet, Stephen Vincent Benét before, but apparently not in the last few years. Born in 1898 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, he was an army brat who grew up in a household of avid writers and readers. He published his first poetry at age 17, and went on to become one of the most widely read poets in the United States from the late 1920s until his death in 1943. As the Poetry Foundation comments, more widely read than T.S. Eliot or Robert Frost. 

Part of his popularity was the quality of his writing - he won two Pulitzer Prizes and an O Henry Award - and part of it was timing. He spent two years writing John Brown’s Body - a book-length poetry collection of eight narratives on the U.S. Civil war - which became the first selection of the newly created Book of the Month Club. He was a prolific writer, including fiction and non-fiction and screenplays. 

LIke many poets of the period he is much less well known today. Why? I’m not sure. Perhaps his writing, and many of his characters, were too traditional for the next postwar era. Or perhaps the need for cowboys and adventurers was being filled by the rise of a new medium - television.

Regardless, Benét’s verse is very readable. Today’s quartet of poems - grouped as Campus Sonnets, were part of Young Adventure, published in 1918, written while he was working for the War Department on hiatus from undergraduate studies at Yale. He tried to enter the army, but his bad eyesight drubbed him out in a matter of weeks. 

I have always liked these. The imagery, the first person narrative, the language. The fading in and out of reality between what you are reading and the world around you. The awareness of passing moments (mindfulness). You could view this as a toned down, experiential response to Teasdale’s Barter, if not for the hard turn in part four, Sadly, these were not the best of times. Many went off to fight in The Great War and never returned. Or returned, but were never the same again. What was true a century ago, sadly, is true still.

--Steve Spanoudis

Campus Sonnets:

1. Before an Examination

The little letters dance across the page, Flaunt and retire, and trick the tired eyes; Sick of the strain, the glaring light, I rise Yawning and stretching, full of empty rage At the dull maunderings of a long dead sage, Fling up the windows, fling aside his lies; Choosing to breathe, not stifle and be wise, And let the air pour in upon my cage. The breeze blows cool and there are stars and stars Beyond the dark, soft masses of the elms That whisper things in windy tones and light. They seem to wheel for dim, celestial wars; And I -- I hear the clash of silver helms Ring icy-clear from the far deeps of night.

2. Talk

Tobacco smoke drifts up to the dim ceiling From half a dozen pipes and cigarettes, Curling in endless shapes, in blue rings wheeling, As formless as our talk. Phil, drawling, bets Cornell will win the relay in a walk, While Bob and Mac discuss the Giants' chances; Deep in a morris-chair, Bill scowls at "Falk", John gives large views about the last few dances. And so it goes -- an idle speech and aimless, A few chance phrases; yet I see behind The empty words the gleam of a beauty tameless, Friendship and peace and fire to strike men blind, Till the whole world seems small and bright to hold -- Of all our youth this hour is pure gold.

3. May Morning

I lie stretched out upon the window-seat And doze, and read a page or two, and doze, And feel the air like water on me close, Great waves of sunny air that lip and beat With a small noise, monotonous and sweet, Against the window -- and the scent of cool, Frail flowers by some brown and dew-drenched pool Possesses me from drowsy head to feet. This is the time of all-sufficing laughter At idiotic things some one has done, And there is neither past nor vague hereafter. And all your body stretches in the sun And drinks the light in like a liquid thing; Filled with the divine languor of late spring.

4. Return -- 1917

"The College will reopen Sept. --." `Catalogue'.

I was just aiming at the jagged hole Torn in the yellow sandbags of their trench, When something threw me sideways with a wrench, And the skies seemed to shrivel like a scroll And disappear . . . and propped against the bole Of a big elm I lay, and watched the clouds Float through the blue, deep sky in speckless crowds, And I was clean again, and young, and whole. Lord, what a dream that was! And what a doze Waiting for Bill to come along to class! I've cut it now -- and he -- Oh, hello, Fred! Why, what's the matter? -- here -- don't be an ass, Sit down and tell me! -- What do you suppose? I dreamed I . . . am I . . . wounded? "You are dead."

--Stephen Vincent Benét