Let me see, Vita Sackville West, subject for Virgina Woolfe's "Orlando".
bw
James
>From: Sally Evans <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: new submission
>Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2001 00:03:58 +0000
>
>Right you lot I'll give it a try, and by the way I am not a lesbian (ref to
>content of poem), and can you work out who the novelist in the poem is or
>does it need a gloss? I think that it ought to stand, if it does, whether
>or
>not you know who the novelist is.
>
> IVY AND MARGARET
>
>Margaret loves furniture: she goes
>up and down the auction rows,
>feather bonnet, smart affair,
>working at the V&A
>a woman among men at play.
>
>The lonely Ivy, novelist
>shattered by war. These two would share
>a flat for more than thirty years,
>a bureau with a book on top,
>paper and highly polished wood.
>
>Catty comments of London life:
>"So late for dinner, but my dears,
>it couldn't spoil, it was corned beef!"
>and Edith Sitwell's poems are "bosh",
>and "homos" so intriguing. Cheers!
>
>Dear old Gollancz, he tries so hard.
>Virginia and Stevie call.
>Dear Cecil here will photograph
>my hollow cheekbones. Let us sit
>together by the silver teapot.
>
>The books are published one by one.
>Margaret retrieves the paper from
>discarded heaps, reuses them
>as notepads at the V&A
>where decades later they are found.
>
>"In no accepted sense were they
>a lesbian couple," says my source.
>"Each sought her own life and fame."
>Away and cuddle! If their brothers
>died fighting, weren't there other men?
>
>Prewar years and postwar years
>merge into one lasting household.
>Margaret travels; Ivy doesn't.
>More manuscripts, more scriptoires,
>and more tea in the silver teapot.
>
>Like many stories, this one ends
>with death, of one then both these friends.
>Their wars are over, and their shelves
>of books are singing to themselves.
>They mourn each other in the hall.
>
>
>Sevans
>[log in to unmask]
>http://www.poetryscotland.co.uk
bw
James
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