Literature overtakes history, for literature gives you more than one life. It expands experience and opens new opportunities to readers.
Dear Sidney,
Juliet says you’re sending a hand-writing fellow to look at Granny Pheen’s letters and decide if Mr. Oscar Wilde wrote them. I’ll bet he did, and even if he didn’t, I think you will admire Solange’s story. I did, Kit did, and I know Granny Pheen did. She would twirl, happy in her grave, to have so many others know about that nice man and his funny ideas.… Read the rest
Dear Sidney,
No diary, but the good news is she did draw while her paper and pencil lasted. I found some sketches stuffed into a large art folio on the bottom shelf of the sitting-room bookcase. Quick line drawings that seem marvelous portraits to me: Isola caught unaware, hitting at something with a wooden spoon; Dawsey digging in a garden; Eben and Amelia with their heads together, talking.
As I … Read the rest
From Juliet to Sidney22nd May, 1946
Dear Sidney,
There’s so much to tell you. I’ve been in Guernsey only twenty hours, but each one has been so full of new faces and ideas that I’ve reams to write. You see how conducive to working island life is? Look at Victor Hugo—I may grow prolific if I stay here for any length of time.
The voyage from Weymouth was ghastly, … Read the rest
Dear Mrs. Maugery,
Yes, you may trust Juliet. I am unequivocal on this point. Her parents were my good friends as well as my parishioners at St. Hilda’s. Indeed, I was a guest at their home on the night she was born.
Juliet was a stubborn but, withal, a sweet, considerate, joyous child—with an unusual bent toward integrity for one so young.
I will tell you of one incident when … Read the rest
Dear Juliet,
Don’t worry about Gilly—you did not embarrass S&S; I’m only sorry that the tea wasn’t hotter and you didn’t aim lower. The Press is hounding me for a statement regarding Gilly’s latest muckraking, and I am going to give them one. Don’t worry; it’s going to be about Journalism in these degenerate times—not about you or Rob Dartry.
I just spoke to Susan about going on to Scotland … Read the rest
Mr. Sidney Stark, Publisher
Stephens & Stark Ltd.
21 St. James’s Place
London S.W.1
England
Dear Sidney,
Susan Scott is a wonder. We sold over forty copies of the book, which was very pleasant, but much more thrilling from my standpoint was the food. Susan managed to procure ration coupons for icing sugar and real eggs for the meringue. If all her literary luncheons are going to … Read the rest
Pedestrian Bystander
Goose bumps. Forgotten jacket. It’s fall.
Side streets are wet off Sunset.
Petrichor adorns as bold steps sound
of puddles found. Throbbing city screams
along. Alone, I’m lost in thought
again, swallowed up by Los Angeles.
Godforsaken sidewalks. Goddamned crosswalks! Los Angeles
wayfarers calm traffic. Until green falls
on idling minds, then progressive thought
drives forward once again. Hidden sunset,
headlights on. On the gas! Screams
at fellow … Read the rest
Little Ones Cry
They have worn out
their limbs from whimpering,
folding their arms with force
and precision, thwarting parental
authority in between
stampeding feet.
Little ones
let their lips quiver
like frozen eskimos.
The howls soar up and echo
off empty juice boxes.
When little ones cry, they create
cracks in the Earth’s surface.
They beat tiny fists cleverly against
table tops and couches
remembering this
is how they … Read the rest
Sunday Catholic School
He was reading the bible and eating a Milky Way, with every bite he took I blushed. His lips a slight delicate pink. Inside me butterflies appeared and disappeared, an imagined prism, a blossoming blue flower expanding, drizzling from my pores. His hands were smooth, his fingers a bit forceful, his smile reassuring me that everything was going to be okay. He gave me something to drink … Read the rest
I was always a dutiful woman. Nobody could tell me that I didn’t fulfill my responsibilities as a daughter, a wife, a caretaker. My mother said that I knew my place as a girl. “When Xiao Lan was a baby,” she’d say, looking at all of the neighborhood aunties who gathered at our courtyard to crack watermelon seeds and drink sweet date tea, “She never cried. She was a twin, … Read the rest