This essay is my jam. I'm so fortunate to have found your Substack. And yes, talking about it all the time, and reading my favorite writers, keeps me from the beckoning balcony. I keep it close so it won't surprise me.
Thank you for reading - I'm absolutely delighted that it resonates with you so much. As I saw in another comment you made, I think we're on the same page about a lot of things and, whether you knew Stevie Smith beforehand or not, I hope that she will be one of those writers bringing you consolation (and laughter)
I'm very happy that you read it, thank you! Glenda Jackson is wonderful at interpreting the poems and bringing out all those complicated shades of emotion.
I love the sonics in some of these excerpts very much, ie: "I should like my soul to be required of me, so as / To waft over grass till it comes to the blue sea / I am very fond of grass, I always have been, but there must / Be no cow, person or house to be seen." -- I/like/required; soul/.. till; so/over/ ... no; as/waft/grass; sea/very... Be; been/person/seen; cow/house ... the sound is just ricocheting around so few lines; it's disconcertingly resonant. Thank you. I need to try to find "Person of Porlock" now (and "Great Unaffected Vampires" ...) --edit: I wonder whether naivety is something a genuine artist pretends, or something they inhabit as really as their perspicacity.
You're sensitive as ever to the resonances (she was such a master of them, wasn't she?) as well to the strange position the little naive girl seems to have in her poetry. I would say (in my opinion) that the technical aspect of the naivete must have been feigned, since I see too much evidence that Smith knows a lot about the traditions that she's playing with. For the more personal aspect, it could be different: the little girl, hurt by the world, sometimes playing and sometimes crying, is probably someone that she inhabited, and who inhabited her. I know that talk about the inner child is easily overdone, but in the end I think we do carry the children we once were inside us
Yes. I don't feel able to adequately express what I am wondering but something about whether it's possible to vividly register or "extremely uniquely" express even a disenchanted response to life without a kind of undiminishing freshness of soul. Art itself is such a mysterious response and it makes sense to me that it paradoxically takes all our sophistication and all our naivete to go on responding to life that way.
I love your essays on poetry. They're pretty amazing. Thank you.
Thank you - it always means so much to read such lovely things about something I’ve written. And I think I know what you mean about the sophistication and the naïveté too, and how paradoxical the combination can be
This essay is my jam. I'm so fortunate to have found your Substack. And yes, talking about it all the time, and reading my favorite writers, keeps me from the beckoning balcony. I keep it close so it won't surprise me.
Thank you for reading - I'm absolutely delighted that it resonates with you so much. As I saw in another comment you made, I think we're on the same page about a lot of things and, whether you knew Stevie Smith beforehand or not, I hope that she will be one of those writers bringing you consolation (and laughter)
Really great work. Thanks for introducing me to her.
Thank you very much - I hope this essay leads you to read her, and I hope that if you do you like her as much as I do!
"All the Poems" is a 2022 collection which I think has all the poems, as advertised, in case you're in need of more Stevie (and who isn't)
Ah, wonderful - that sounds like something for a birthday list. (The book must be gigantic.) Thank you for reading!
I’m happy to read this. I had almost forgotten her. First heard of her thanks to the movie Stevie, with Glenda Jackson (speaking of voices).
I'm very happy that you read it, thank you! Glenda Jackson is wonderful at interpreting the poems and bringing out all those complicated shades of emotion.
What an excellent essay! Subscribed.
Thank you very much - a big welcome to you, and I hope you find some other things that you enjoy just as much!
I love the sonics in some of these excerpts very much, ie: "I should like my soul to be required of me, so as / To waft over grass till it comes to the blue sea / I am very fond of grass, I always have been, but there must / Be no cow, person or house to be seen." -- I/like/required; soul/.. till; so/over/ ... no; as/waft/grass; sea/very... Be; been/person/seen; cow/house ... the sound is just ricocheting around so few lines; it's disconcertingly resonant. Thank you. I need to try to find "Person of Porlock" now (and "Great Unaffected Vampires" ...) --edit: I wonder whether naivety is something a genuine artist pretends, or something they inhabit as really as their perspicacity.
Thank you so much for reading!
You're sensitive as ever to the resonances (she was such a master of them, wasn't she?) as well to the strange position the little naive girl seems to have in her poetry. I would say (in my opinion) that the technical aspect of the naivete must have been feigned, since I see too much evidence that Smith knows a lot about the traditions that she's playing with. For the more personal aspect, it could be different: the little girl, hurt by the world, sometimes playing and sometimes crying, is probably someone that she inhabited, and who inhabited her. I know that talk about the inner child is easily overdone, but in the end I think we do carry the children we once were inside us
Yes. I don't feel able to adequately express what I am wondering but something about whether it's possible to vividly register or "extremely uniquely" express even a disenchanted response to life without a kind of undiminishing freshness of soul. Art itself is such a mysterious response and it makes sense to me that it paradoxically takes all our sophistication and all our naivete to go on responding to life that way.
I love your essays on poetry. They're pretty amazing. Thank you.
Thank you - it always means so much to read such lovely things about something I’ve written. And I think I know what you mean about the sophistication and the naïveté too, and how paradoxical the combination can be