The most popular playwright of the Restoration

APHRA “ASTREA” BEHN




Any day that she saw light, she read,

Pleased by the words that brought

Her a studied imagination

Royally bent toward the king.

A Tory she was and said,

“As you think, so shall you be.”

She thought she was equal any man

That wrote a line and showed her

Regal master the scripted play.

Every day was a turning point

And a validation for all women

Bent to will of patriarchies,

Even those of court and common.

Her legacy was that all were

Noble in possibility and reach.



--April-May, 2009

"Aphra 'Astrea' Behn" is an acrostic poem, one in the series about women, especially those who had to fight for recognition in a male world.  These are collected in the unpublished Women and Love.  When I first discovered Behn, I was quite annoyed that she had not been presented in any of my undergraduate courses.  I read her play The Rover, or The Banish'd Cavaliers (1677) and enjoyed it.  Like the Elizabethan playwrights, those of the Restoration wrote under the glow of a monarchy and wrote with it in mind.  They enjoyed puns and tropes and schemes as much as the Elizabethans.  Of course, she can't compare with Shakespeare (Who can?), but she is comparable to the other playwrights.
 
Aphra Behn served as a spy for England during the war with the Dutch. She also wrote many poems and Oroonoko: or, the Royal Slave (1699), one of the earliest novels in English Literature.  Most of its main characters are black, and the narrative takes them from African royalty into slavery for the Europeans in the New World.  It is also a love story of loss, separation and rediscovery.
 
From what I have discovered, Aphra lived a bisexual life freely and openly, although she seemed to prefer women to men.  The Victorians could not abide such gender bending and shut her out of their canon of literature; therefore, her fame languished until the women's movement of the 20th century.
 
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Young, black and enslaved

Phillis Wheatley




Phoebus remained her true god, the flambeau brought with

Her from Africa when she was ten years old.

In the dark of slavery, she was—without a doubt—

Lucky, for her master nurtured the flame of curiosity;

Lucky, for her Boston family illumined her—

In the home—with the edification of the word,

So she bloomed as a bright and reflective

Writer. Her poems sparkled with light.

Her poems illuminated those who read them.

Even Washington, warmed, beckoned her to Mount Vernon,

And she came and they talked unto emblazonment.

Then, after that talk, he allowed black soldiers to be

Let to serve their country, and at death, he freed his slaves.

Everything did not stay sublime: her husband passed, so darkened her last

Years of toil; she died only thirty-one.

2010
 
"Phillis Wheatley" is an acrostic poem. She is the beginning of African-American literature.  What I really enjoy about her story is how her bright intelligence put to lie the idea that black people were inherently inferior, convincing the father of our country that someday we all would truly be equal.
 
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the romantic illusion

A ROMANCE


I imagine the first glance:
Quick like the eye of a bird,
Moist like a deer’s
Expectant like a child’s
Full of wonder and curiosity, newborn.


I imagine the first closeness:
The furnace of your body palpable,
Your hair lightly visible around your breasts,
The slight perspiration over your lips, slightly parted
Like a waiting door, fresh painted.


I imagine the first words:
Intense breath and mellifluous
Vibrating from your lips,
Flowing, flowing in waves,
Washing my mind like the ocean
Rinsing the shore, redolent with life and expectation.


I imagine the first touch:
Your skin smooth against mine,
Your cheek brushing mine softly,
Your fingers playing enchantments on my wrist,
Your hair falling like a net lured
With promises, sparkling in sunlight.


I imagine the first kiss:
Hot, soft, pressing and drawing me
Simultaneously, spontaneously
Into your embrace, into the core of the furnace,
Into your wild and full self,
A drowning into the pool of firsts and forevers.



Published in the Tampa Bay Review, Fall 1989

I wrote this poem on a dare.  At the time, I was working as an academic dean, and a female teacher who was married to an unfaithful man began flirting with me.  I was in a committed relationship and had no intention of doing anything, but I was sympathetic because of her situation.  She asked me to write a poem about love.  I wrote this, but it is a stealth poem because although it seems to be about romatic love, it is a deception.  The title "A Romance" if read carefully is the opposite of romance just as amoral is the opposite of moral and abnormal is the opposite of normal.

If not read carefully, each stanza seems to encompass a step into romantic love, but the first words of each stanza are I imagine, so nothing is really happening; it is all imaginary.  The final line, A drowning into the pool of firsts and forevers, is a final assessment of "a romance."  What rational human wants to drown in anything?  A drowning is an excess, an overdoing, and can mean the end of everything.  A pool is a collection; it can be a collection of water, but it can also be a collection of experiences--in this case romantic experiences.  The implication is that once again, but for the first time with each new lover, will come the enveloping romantic love in which one becomes infatuated with love itself, so one speaks in "perpetual hyperbole."*

*Perpetual hyperbole is from Sir Francis Bacon's essay "Of Love."

Having revealed my thoughts about romance, I can still enjoy love narratives and poetry.  Here are some of my favorites (most of these have been made into movies) :

Veronica Franco Casanova Heath Ledger

VERONICA FRANCO


Verily, verily these be the courtesan verities

Etched upon the flexible woman’s brow—

Reality as brutal as all other fealties.

Out of Venice, she brought as a woman now,

Not man, might bring these things to light

Incandescent as a burning bow,

Curtsy or genuflect in the breadth of night—

Anthems for women in which to believe

For dangerous darkness or dreary daylight.

Romances about beautiful life she could weave

And print them and read them and boldly shine,

Not abed necessarily, nor nursery bereave,

Chatting with the best minds line by line,

Owner of her world with a presence fine.



4/26-5/11/2009

 
This acrostic poem has not previously been published.  Veronica Franco is another amazing woman who lived in a time when women's minds were not valued.  She was a poet and literateur.  In the recent movie Casanova the female lead opposite Casanova was based on her.  Heath Ledger plays Casanova, so the movie has that added allure of the too-soon-gone actor of promise.
 
Since she was a poet, the acrostic devoted to her also rhymes (ababcbcdcdedee) and has fourteen lines as does a sonnet.  During her time, rhymed sonnets were common.

Georgia Okeeffe Taos Lee Ware

GEORGIA O’KEEFFE

Gorgeously artistic mind she had, so

Each time she spied a view—it was new,

Opposed to what she had been taught.

Rigorously focused more finely than a camera,

Gloriously deft eye she had—so

Indisputably hers—that her strokes seemed

As if she had merely swallowed a petal, and

Out of her it reappeared for us all to see.

Knowledge of light and line were there, too,

Exhibited to the world (by her spouse).

Enviously, we saw how seeing as she saw

First, made us second to the fine eye and

Fine hand that ever steadily drew us into her

Ever finer, ever greater, artistic universe.

This acrostic poem has never been published before now.  I wrote it in 2008.  Okeeffe has long been one of my favorite artists.  I have visited Taos, New Mexico, and seen her home and many of the buildings she painted--and vistas, and flowers, and plants.  I admire her person as much as I admire her paintings, for she was as true to her person as her art.  One of my favorite birthday gifts was a book of her paintings, given to me by Lee Ware, who understood my soul as much as anyone ever has. The book was titled Georgia O'Keeffe, A Studio Book and was published by Viking Press in 1976.  I haven't been able to find it on the Web, so it is probably out of print.

Follow this link to buy prints of her paintings.  Georgia Okeeffe

Kate Chopin The Awakening

This is the orginal cover of her novel.  You can order the current version by clicking on the link below.

The Awakening

KATE CHOPIN




Kindred spirit to Artemisia and Frida was Kate, who battled men in a man’s world,
As if she could play the patriarchal game, when all the while she suffered the
Torments of the specially gifted differently to see the illusions of the world as she
Eluded the stereotypes of wife and mother, although she was both, and
Created her truer world of Creole and Cajun denizens of real desires and
Hopes of all places and all times. She wrote so people could understand if
Only they would read and learn how women yearn to be another unique
Person, just that and nothing more, a flesh and blood and nerve and mind
Individually wrapped, but sensing the universe and all its possibilities
No more nor less than any other homo sapiens that ever trod the earth.


June 2008

This acrostic poem was first published in Creative Woman, Miami Dade College, 2008; and subsequently in the Ann Arbor Review, Fall 2009.

Edith Piaf La Vie en Rose

EDITH “LA MOME” PIAF

Every time she sang, people stopped: their work, their worries, their

Disappointments, their meals, and gave her their ears. O, Chanteuse!

In Paris, she was a little throbbing sparrow with a huge voice

That crooned, “I am singing about you—this place and this time—forever.”

How did such a tiny vessel ring with such a full tone?

“La Mome” knew their hearts, knew their souls, carried their torch,

And all who heard her caught the flame that seared them.

Many would start, clasp their hands, and gaze at the enchantress

Out of whose mouth their mysteries and secrets were revealed.

Many, listening alone to a radio, would feel their lips quiver, sense

Each tear that trickled down their cheeks, sigh and

Peek out a window at the City of Lights, city of art, city of

Iniquities, city of failing empire, city of humiliation.

As she sang “No, Je Ne Regrette Rien,” all the denizens knew she knew

Full well their strengths and weaknesses and loved them despite their faults.



This acrostic poem about another creative woman who suffered for her art was first published in Creative Woman, Miami Dade College, 2008, and subsequently in the Ann Arbor Review, Fall 2009.  I recommend the movie La Vie en Rose about Edith Piaf.  It's a wonderful rendition of her life and art.  Click here to order:  La Vie en Rose

Artemisia Gentileschi

Artemisia Gentileschi by Mary D Garrard  Order this book about Artemisia.

a self-portrait

ARTEMISIA GENTILESCHI

As a woman, she learned that in a baroque

Renaissance she was not less proficient

Than a man, in fact, just as good stroke-for-stroke in each

Endeavor—canvas by canvas—that she undertook.

Men—those lying devils—were not, not

Including her father Orazio, to be trusted,

Should not be believed. They bruited falsely.

Instead, she followed her own golden thread.

Ahead of her time, she would take (like Clio and Minerva)

Great strides, paint greatly the tropes of

Each dream that would in a Medicean terrain

Not leave the orbit of her mind, that would

Take over her Roman spirit, that would

Inculcate within her a desire, a drive, to

Live the artistic life—courtly and ecumenical—despite

Every offense given her—rape, neglect, abuse—by those

Single-minded, lazy, self-indulgent, brutish

Curs that sniffed around her chiascuro.

Her dream grew in perspective with her visual

Intelligence and skillful hand—innately hers.

This acrostic poem was first published in Creative Woman, Miami Dade College, 2008; and subsequently in the Ann Arbor Review, Fall 2009.  This female artist was overlooked until the 20th century.

Miami International Film Festival

Miami Film Festival 2008 "My Dream"

AN ENVOY OF THE FLOATING WORLD

1

My dream was seeing your grace and charm,

your acrobatic hands,

                    your lithe form twirling,

so the diaphanous dress rose

                like a cloud

                   or a butterfly.

You floated above us the dumb audience,

rendering a dance so composed

as if

                                  you did not live

                              for applause

but only

                                 for the dance.

2

Earlier in rehearsals I had seen you not

speaking, not

exclaiming, but

listening with your eyes

as your choreographer directed

with her hands your every movement:

a lift,

a dip,

your hands fluttering like the wings of birds

in flight,

rising on air,

your form embracing the curve of the earth

and buoyant as the sky.

3

Up close, your face was luminous

                      as the moon in early spring.

                   Through your lunar eyes,

you tried to understand the silent throng

of aliens

                                        that smiled, clapped and bowed—

                                              and had photos taken beside your gift.

You true artist,

who would have danced

in a blind forest,

so only the wild creatures could have fallen in love,

I blow you a kiss

because I know neither of your tongues—

Chinese

                      or your supple

                   arms,

                                    hands and

                                                 fingers.

3/2-12/08

I wrote this poem after seeing a deaf Chinese dancer perform with amazing grace at the Miami International Film Festival 2008.  The poem was published first in Creative Woman, Miami-Dade College, 2008.