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<div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false">I haven't come across this before and wonder why -- it's all over the internet: 19,700 results on Google for <span>"Bronwen Wallace" + woolf.</span><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div><div dir="ltr" data-setdir="false"><br></div><div><br></div>
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On Thursday, 6 August 2020, 16:02:27 BST, Stuart N. Clarke via Vwoolf <vwoolf@lists.osu.edu> wrote:
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<div>A friend sent me this.</div>
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<p style="MARGIN-LEFT:0cm;MARGIN-RIGHT:0cm;"><span><font style="background-color: inherit;" face="Times New Roman"><font style="FONT-SIZE:14pt;"></font></font></span> </p>
<p style="MARGIN-LEFT:0cm;MARGIN-RIGHT:0cm;"><span><font style="background-color: inherit;" face="Arial">A Simple Poem For Virginia Woolf</font></span></p>
<p style="MARGIN-LEFT:0cm;MARGIN-RIGHT:0cm;"><span><font style="background-color: inherit;" face="Arial">This started out as a simple poem<br>for Virginia Woolf you know the
kind<br>we women writers write these days<br>in our own rooms<br>on our own
time<br>a salute a gesture of friendship<br>a psychological debt<br>paid
off<br>I wanted it simple<br>and perfect round<br>hard as an<br>egg I
thought<br>only once I’d said egg<br>I thought of the smell<br>of bacon grease
and dirty frying-pans<br>and whether there were enough for breakfast<br>I
couldn’t help it<br>I wanted the poem to be carefree and easy<br>like children
playing in the snow<br>I didn’t mean to mention<br>the price of snowsuits
or<br>how even on the most expensive ones<br>the zippers always snag<br>just
when you’re late for work<br>and trying to get the children<br>off to school on
time<br>a straightforward poem<br>for Virginia Woolf that’s all<br>I wanted
really<br>not something tangled in<br>domestic life the way<br>Jane Austen’s
novels tangled<br>with her knitting her embroidery<br>whatever it was she hid
them under<br>I didn’t mean to go into all that<br>didn’t intend to get
confessional<br>and tell you how<br>every time I read a good poem<br>by a woman
writer I’m always peeking<br>behind it trying to see<br>if she’s still
married<br>or has a lover at least<br>wanted to know what she did<br>with her
kids while she wrote it<br>or whether she had any<br>and if she didn’t if she’d
chosen<br>not to or if she did did she<br>choose and why I didn’t mean<br>to
bother with that<br>and I certainly wasn’t going<br>to tell you about the
time<br>my best friend was sick in intensive care<br>and I went down to see
her<br>but they wouldn’t let me in<br>because I wasn’t her husband<br>or her
father her mother<br>I wasn’t family<br>I was just her friend<br>and the
friendship of women<br>wasn’t mentioned<br>in hospital policy<br>or how I went
out and kicked<br>a dent in the fender of my car<br>and sat there crying
because<br>if she died I wouldn’t be able<br>to tell her how much I loved
her<br>(though she didn’t and we laugh<br>about it now) but that’s what got
me<br>started I suppose wanting to write<br>a gesture of friendship<br>for a
woman for a woman writer<br>for Virginia Woolf<br>and thinking I could do
it<br>easily separating the words<br>from the lives they come from<br>that’s
what a good poem should do<br>after all and I wasn’t going to make
excuses<br>for being a woman blaming years of silence<br>for leaving us<br>so
much to say</font></span></p>
<p style="MARGIN-LEFT:0cm;MARGIN-RIGHT:0cm;"><span><font style="background-color: inherit;" face="Arial">This started out as a simple poem<br>for Virginia Woolf<br>it wasn’t
going to mention history<br>or choices or women’s lives<br>the complexities of
women’s friendships<br>or the countless gritty details<br>of an ordinary woman’s
life<br>that never appear in poems at all<br>yet even as I write these
words<br>those ordinary details intervene<br>between the poem I meant to
write<br>and this one where the delicate faces<br>of my children faces of
friends<br>of women I have never even seen<br>glow on the blank pages<br>and
deeper than any silence<br>press around me<br>waiting their
turn</font></span></p>
<p style="MARGIN-LEFT:0cm;MARGIN-RIGHT:0cm;"><span><font style="background-color: inherit;" face="Arial">Bronwen Wallace</font></span></p>
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<div>Stuart</div>
<div>(Day 142)</div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>_______________________________________________<br>Vwoolf mailing list<br><a href="mailto:Vwoolf@lists.osu.edu" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Vwoolf@lists.osu.edu</a><br><a href="https://lists.osu.edu/mailman/listinfo/vwoolf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://lists.osu.edu/mailman/listinfo/vwoolf</a><br></div>
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