Lola Ridge's first two books, which are in the public domain, are coming
soon to Project Gutenberg & some of my server space. Announcement then.
Ridge was born in Dublin and lived in New Zealand and in Australia
before moving to New York. She was a leftist, editor of The Dial and
Broom, etc.
She's best known for her long poems such as "The Ghetto" or "Songs of
Iron"; "Sun-Up" itself is a cycle in a young girl's voice with some very
odd Bunuel-like sequence I might send to the Doll Games site. But,
here's a little poem mentioning Sydney from her book SUN-UP:
THE DREAM
HAVE a dream
to fill the golden sheath
of a remembered day....
(Air
heavy and massed and blue
as the vapor of opium...
domes
fired in sulphurous mist...
sea
quiescent as a gray seal...
and the emerging sun
spurting up gold
over Sydney, smoke-pale, rising out of the bay....)
But the day is an up-turned cup
and its sun a junk of red iron
guttering in sluggish-green water --
where shall I pour my dream?
Rgds,
Catherine Daly
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