| Author | Message | ||
| Dan Tompsett
Intermediate Member Username: db_tompsett Post Number: 487 Registered: 07-2007 |
Deborah Digges. The story is in today's NYT. Here's one of her poems: Darwin's Finches by Deborah Digges 1 My mother always called it a nest, the multi-colored mass harvested from her six daughters' brushes, and handed it to one of us after she had shaped it, as we sat in front of the fire drying our hair. She said some birds steal anything, a strand of spider's web, or horse's mane, the residue of sheep's wool in the grasses near a fold where every summer of her girlhood hundreds nested. Since then I've seen it for myself, their genius— how they transform the useless. I've seen plastics stripped and whittled into a brilliant straw, and newspapers—the dates, the years— supporting the underweavings. 2 As tonight in our bed by the window you brush my hair to help me sleep, and clean the brush as my mother did, offering the nest to the updraft. I'd like to think it will be lifted as far as the river, and catch in some white sycamore, or drift, too light to sink, into the shaded inlets, the bank-moss, where small fish, frogs, and insects lay their eggs. Would this constitute an afterlife? The story goes that sailors, moored for weeks off islands they called paradise, stood in the early sunlight cutting their hair. And the rare birds there, nameless, almost extinct, came down around them and cleaned the decks and disappeared into the trees above the sea. "People who believe a lot of crap are better off." Charles Bukowski | ||
| Judy Thompson
Advanced Member Username: judyt54 Post Number: 1472 Registered: 11-2007 |
what terrible thing does this to the creative--that very instrument we play, that poem, that story, is the thing that sometimes keeps us alive, and sometimes kills us. Anne sexton said once that poetry was the only way she could keep herself from dying. I try to pretend that we are no different from anyone else, we just pot along as best we can, with our public lives and private ones; and yet when you read the roll call of writer/suicides, you realize we are very different indeed. I think we all walk a knife edge beside that river, some closer than others. What a damn shame, and what a lovely poem. Afraid of the Dark | ||
| ~M~
Board Administrator Username: mjm Post Number: 33865 Registered: 11-1998 |
Very sad, Dan. Thank you for posting the notification and the poem. I read somewhere (can't remember where) that poets on the whole don't live as long as most people. Whether those live are cut short by their own hands or by some other means wasn't specified. But basically, it would seem that selecting poetry as an avocation isn't good for your health. I guess we take the risk, though. The poetry is worth it. My condolences to Ms. Digges' family and friends. Love, M | ||
| Dan Tompsett
Intermediate Member Username: db_tompsett Post Number: 489 Registered: 07-2007 |
Here's a short article on this subject: http://www.nytimes.com/1994/11/14/books/exploring-the-links-between-depression-writers-and-suicide.html?sec=health "People who believe a lot of crap are better off." Charles Bukowski |
