Alice M. Fay - 5 Short Poems (1912-24)

Forgotten Poems #127 || Reissue #29

    
              —: Where? :—

       Where is the life of the lily
       That so proudly reared her head?
       Where is the radiant beauty
       Of the rose that was warm and red?
       Where is the smoke of the incense
       That vanished into the air?
       The scent of the violet, the song of the singer,
       Where, oh, where?
    

    
              —: Manifestation :—

       I drift bright poppies on the hillside,
       I am the urge of the insistent sea,
       I call to you from far-off, dim horizons,
       And quiet places speak to you of me.
    

    
              —: Near Crete :—

       The moonlight shines on the broad calm sea,
       Near the rocks by the Cretan shore,
       And the waves are whispering tales to me,
       Of the ships that will sail no more.
    

    
              —: Beyond :—

       How often have I wished that I might see
       Beyond the veil of future's mystery;
       A little while, a little space, that I
       Might see beyond the cloudless, star-lit sky,
       That realm, that sphere, untenanted by men,
       Beyond, above, a little while, and then—
    

    
              —: All This Is Thy Love To Me :—

       Like a fair and radiant flower,
       In the early dawn of spring,
       Like the song the seraph angels
       In heaven surely sing,
       Like a star on the dim horizon,
       When the evening shadows fall,
       And we feel a veil of darkness
       Will soon envelop all;

       Calm and serene as the mountains,
       Fathomless as the sea,
       Mysterious as the future,
       All this is thy love to me.
    

Alice M. Fay (p. 1912-24, etc.), was a poet and illustrator from New York. She published her first book of poetry The Realm of Fancy: Poems & Pictures in 1912, and was featured in numerous ‘little magazines’ of the 1920s, including Rhythmus (edited by Oscar Williams) and Pegasus (edited by W.H. Lench). Other than this, little is known of her life.

Both Fay’s drawings and verse are comprised of accomplished line-work and subtle, suggestive forms, drawn from the ephemerality of the natural world. ‘Where’, for instance, is a delicate micro-treatise on poetics, in which the scent of flowers and vanishing smoke are compared to the songs of the singer: i.e. the poetry of the world is to be found in the invisible and ephemeral, rather than the visible and permanent. Echoing this, in ‘Near Crete’ the sound of the waves become poet: “whispering tales… of ships that come no more.” Again the image arrives and then disappears. Poetry: always vanishing.

serene as the mountains—
thy love

Fay’s work also has feminist and queer undertones. In ‘Beyond’, for instance, Fay seeks a world “untenanted by men,” i.e. beyond patriarchy: “beyond the veil of future’s mystery.” In ‘All This Is Thy Love To Me’ Fay appears to be addressing another woman, and their “love” is described in terms that would have dominantly been read as “feminine” at that time (fair, calm, mysterious, angelic). Furthermore, as neither poet nor lover have textually definite genders, the subject-positions of the poem are left open to suggestion, able to be occupied by readers of any gender and sexuality.

    
              —: After Alice M. Fay :—
                        by Dick Whyte

       “into air—the scent of a violet sings!”

                                I.

       immortal the flower's stem:
       an umbilical of petals ontologically

       arrested

                                II.

       make no mistake,
       you can't pry open the head of an ocean

       without imagining our annihilation

                                III.

       when the sun goes down
       be kind to one other,

       haven't you spoken sparrow before?
    

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