10 Comments

didn't plan to start the day in tears but YOUR POEM

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Awwwww thanks Kerry - hope it was some healing tears x

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I feel you, Kerry. There's something so beautiful about the truth. It always comes with tears for me, as well. . . heart water.

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Wow. “I Sit and Sew”: amazing. I’m in awe. I don’t know if this poem is widely shared (I haven’t seen it before) but it should be. Thank you for posting the work and bio of this extraordinary woman.

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Yeah - what a poem! I think "I Sit and Sew" has been anthologised a few times, but still doesn't get the recognition it deserves! Aw, you are very welcome. Thanks so much for reading and commenting.

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She was such an interesting person. She and PLD courted through letters for years. He proposed on the spot when he finally met her. The poems are beautiful. Your response is perfection.

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Yeah that makes sense - if only PLD had of been as nice in person as he was in letters. Awww thanks Rod - really means a lot. xxx

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From what I’ve learned, it sounds like a one-time event brought on by the alcohol that was prescribed as a treatment for his tuberculosis. He tried repeatedly to reconcile. It’s all very sad.

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Yeah, I am not sure about that. From what I've read he seems to have had a vicious tongue, and was verbally abusive and physically domineering from the beginning - Alice's short-stories are pretty revealing around this, and there are other documents as well. I think it gets downplayed because of, y'know, patriarchal history writing. Like, absolutely, it is all very sad - agreed - and I am sure he was traumatised by his own upbringing as well (his father was seriously abusive). But I don't think it was a one off incident, and he doesn't seem to have ever held himself accountable for his actions. His views on marriage and women were really shit too, which he put in a really nasty poem about Alice after the separation. At any rate, I can see why Alice wouldn't have a bar of any kind of reconciliation.

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It sounds like they were rather kind to him in the documentary I watched. Thanks for the additional information, Dick.

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