Hi Sally,
I like the grand tone in this poem as if calling to the people you mention
beyond the grave so to speak. The word I need to describe it is
declacmatory.
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 Poem: DId I ever go to Heptonstall?
>Date: Fri, 4 Jun 2004 20:32:07 +0100
>
>Did I ever go to Heptonstall?
>
> note: this poem has been a long time coming. I am grateful to Sally J for
>catalysiing it with her new poem Heptonstall Church Yard, which I enjoyed
>very much.
>
>SallyE
>
>
>Did I ever go to Heptonstall?
>
>Did I ever go to Heptonstall
>to look for the twentieth century girl
>whose battled words meant love of death
>or was I there in search of those
>harder to find, perhaps no less
>plunged in truth-destroying myth?
>
>What is there about these moors
>turns up three fateful sisters, whose
>brother holds the villain's card
>one century, then another one and a half
>hundred years on, a woman writer and a man,
>he local, she incomer, the worse tangled?
>
>Yet another religion based on
>goddesses and gods of literature,
>uncontrollable emotion, rage turned
>into words, love turned into rage, passion
>turned into something else that lingers
>in charged, walled burial plots?
>
>What is it and what are they
>that both console and stop us short,
>us their readers, women and men
>of pen, church, vocation, keyboard,
>desires untamed because untameable,
>or fears unnamed because unnameable?
>
>What darkness yet in the names,
>Plath, Charlotte, Emily, Syvlia,
>Ted, Brontë, Branwell, Hughes,
>Howarth and Heptonstall?
>Is it ghosts, relief, hysteria,
>handed-on passion, or nothing at all?
>
>Sally Evans
>
>
>
>on 4/6/04 6:30 pm, Sally James at [log in to unmask] wrote:
>
> > Heptonstall churchyard
> >
> > Some bizarre twist of fate brought me here
> > to this place, this grave of woman’s weeping
> > The day was sunny, the blossom swayed
> > lent its perfume to the moor land wind
> > but by the church,
> > great gusts carried my breath away
> > tangled my hair, blew my skirt above my knees
> > I don’t know why I came at all
> > I was out for pleasure, to see the countryside
> > look for somewhere new to hang my hat
> > The church tower looked fierce
> > frowned, as I trod the cobbles
> > the narrow streets
> > searched the tipsy grave stones
> > that leaned port side in the
> > early summer’s howl
> > I had to ask of course
> > “Many visitors come,” he said
> > then pointed, told me
> > where the woman lay
> > But today, there was only me
> > pacing up and down the ranks
> > inspecting, looking for the poet
> > whose petals bloomed in fiercest flames
> > I found the plot at last
> > and tears erupted, spilled
> > upon her flowered bed
> > and as I cried, the church bell tolled
> > Three times.
> >
> > sally james
> >
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