“We dance with proud and smiling lips, / With frank, appealing eyes, with shy hands clinging”

[larryhammer]

For Poetry Monday:

Opal, Amy Lowell

You are ice and fire,
The touch of you burns my hands like snow.
You are cold and flame.
You are the crimson of amaryllis,
The silver of moon-touched magnolias.
When I am with you,
My heart is a frozen pond
Gleaming with agitated torches.


Amy Lowell (1887-1925) was another female foundational figure of Modernism who was marginalized, in part because Pound (in the eyes of later critics) won their spats over how to Do Modernism—not to mention outlasted her. (Interestingly, like Pound, she collaborated with a Chinese-speaking Westerner on translations of Chinese poetry.)

---L.

Subject quote from The Masquerade, Olive Custance, a member of the previous generation’s Aesthetic Movement.

Comments

[cmcmck]

Nice!

Any relation to Robert of that ilk, fellow poet?

[larryhammer]

Yes, relations, but not close -- the Lowells were a Boston Brahmin family with a ton of famous people going back to the Revolution. For example, one of Amy's brothers was the astronomer Percival, and the 19th century Fireside Poet James Russell was also a member. Tracing through the tree, Amy's paternal great-great-grandfather was Robert's paternal great-great-great-grandfather (and James Russel's grandfather). In the relationship terms I use, that makes them third cousins once removed, but English has more than one system for such naming.

[shewhomust]

I know nothing about Midernism. On the contrary, I am pretty much a lapsed Medievalist. Therefore, when I see the 'ice and fire' opposition. I think of Petrarch.

This is of no relevance whatsover, but I thought I'd share it with you.

[larryhammer]

Oh, she’s totally playing with the Petrarchan tradition here.