Had a good time yesterday at Ramey's birthday gathering. Today I've had a busy morning, packing and mailing a book and--and--well, I did something else. Two things in one day is a pretty good record.
I only have one little measly new poem to read at tonight's poetry group meeting.
Thursday will be August first, and then I'll send Ms. Walker a bunch of poems to consider for making me a book. I've always dreamed of being a book.
This book points out the incredible similarities in the lives of Lord Byron and of Shakespeare (Edward De Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford). And the final, fateful difference that affected posterity's assessment of these two prodigies of English literature.
The difference was that Byron suffered (literally) early fame and an early death. While Oxford's great works were denied any sort of fame in connection with himself, throughout a comparatively long life of hiding his identity and perfecting his works.
"Until Thomas Looney unearthed Oxford, nothing at all was known about the author of Shakespeare, while Byron was one of the most highly publicized writers who ever lived." And, "Oxford and Byron were Gullivers in a land of Lilliputians." -- Hughes
Of Oxford's protagonist Biron, in Love's Labour's Lost, it was said, "Biron they call him, but a merrier man/ Within the limit of becoming mirth,/ I never spent an hour's talk withal./ His eye begets occasion for his wit."
Byron's family name was originally Biron, of Norman French origin. His first mistress was the wife of Lord Harley, a late earl of Oxford. Byron's last mistress wrote of him, "When he laughed the very air around him appeared to laugh."
Hughes' small book is filled with paragraph after paragraph--hundreds--of coincidences and similarities in the lives of these two poets and playwrights.
It's almost as if Byron's life was a morality lesson for Oxford, showing what might have been Shakespeare's reputation, had his early, unperfected writing brought him fame.
Edward De Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, 1550-1604
George Gordon, Lord Byron, 1788-1824
One of those days when I can't stand anything. So I might as well spend it cleaning.
O mistress mine, where are you roaming?
Oh, stay and hear--your true love's coming
that can sing both high and low!
Trip no further, pretty sweeting--
Journeys end in lovers' meeting,
every wise man's son doth know!
Last week I watched Part 1 of the PBS film "The Journey Of the Corps Of Discovery," written by Dayton Duncan. Last night I watched Part 2. Of course, it was mostly scenery and pictures of Indians, Lewis, Clark and Jefferson, but it was narrated by several writers including Duncan, Stephen Ambrose, and William Least Heat-Moon.
The film was produced by Duncan and Ken Burns in 1997, but I hadn't seen it before. I had read Ambrose's book. Anything about the expedition is marred for me by knowing that it must end with Lewis' shooting himself. Only some sources say that he may have been murdered. Either way, he suffered terrible depression, and it's a sad denouement to the story.
Another bothersome fact was that William Clark took his slave called York on the trip. There were about 40 members of the expedition, and they lost only one man who died of a disease early in the journey. In the end, every man was given large plots of land and other valuables. Except York. York got nothing. Years later, Clark did grudgingly give him his freedom.
On several occasions, Sacajawea and other Indian women saved the explorers from suspicious native Americans. There really was a Nez Perce chief named Twisted Hair, which reminded me of a book I had read based on the Twisted-Hair-storyteller legend. In the book, a Twisted Hair wandered all over the West telling the Indians that the end of the world was coming. Of course, he meant the white men, the end of the Indians' world.
I woke up with a theory about the ghosts in the Hammond's Camp house. At the time all those phenomena were phenoming, Lawrence had a job, so Mary and Alfred had to be teenagers. It could have been a simple case of poltergeists. If ever any teenagers could cause dippers to move around in waterbuckets, or invisible animals to fall from the ceiling, or women to scream in the attic and whisper under the furniture, or mirrors to become opaque--can't you imagine it was these two little scoundrels?
Well, I'm housebound today. Yesterday, I waited and waited for the Lowe's man to come and measure for the new appliances. Finally skipped out for a few minutes to go to the post office, and he phoned while I was gone. When I got home, I called, explained, and asked if he could come back. No, he said, it would be tomorrow or Friday, and he'd call and let me know when.
So I dare not leave the house again. Out of cat food. Out of milk. Why didn't I get them yesterday? I was in a hurry to get back in case the Lowe's person called.
I've been thinking about foramina, the holes in bones and organs that allow all parts of the body to communicate with each other. If clouds, water, plants, babies, don't convince us of Divinity, we should think about foramina.
The Good: In spite of having a lot of pain, Sister Susan hosted a great Fourth Of July family celebration at the Yellow House, Thursday afternoon. Jesse and Jed and we three "weird sisters" gathered around a very festive table. Angela and India didn't show; neither did Buffy and her bunch. We're going to have to talk to those girls.
The Dog-In-the-Manger Dept.: In 2012, I won six poetry awards at the Alabama Writers Conclave in Fairhope, Alabama, including a first, a second, and two third prizes. But on their website list of the 2012 winners, they only show me as a winner of one honorable mention. Makes you wonder what's the use.
Furthermore, the poem I entered in the 2013 Alabama State Poetry Society contest didn't win anything, which gripes my innards.
To Go Or Not To Go: Ms. Sue W. of Negative Capability Press in Mobile, Alabama, has offered to look at some of my poems with a view to publishing a book of them. She said if I attend the AWC meeting in Fairhope next week, we'll talk about it, but if I don't go, I can send her "ten or twelve" poems in August. Jed has generously offered to drive us down there Friday, but I can't decide whether or no.
Thinking of the recent poetry books Neg. Cap. has published for Joe and Barry and others, I wonder if a book of my "ten or twelve" little cockeyed poems would even be noticed.
If I had a desk with a drawer that locked, I think I would just lock all five or six hundred of them in the drawer, a la Emily Dickinson, and eventually die unpublished. And if posterity didn't find them, it's their loss.
Anyway, we'll probably go to Fairhope.
. . . not to leave the hard stuff till the last minute. I've cleaned all afternoon, and now I'm taking a break until I can straighten up.
I was hoping the books I ordered would arrive today, but they didn't. One was Loving Frank by Nancy Horan, about F.L. Wright. And the other was something about Shakespeare by Charlton Ogburn, that I haven't seen before.
