Betty Earl - 3 Short Poems (1917-1922)
Forgotten Poems #99 || Reissue #16
“Imagination haloes effective writing, illumines and beautifies those phrases that a too-strong searchlight might mar. Images should be summoned, not stunned by excessive detail. Effective description inks the image, lifts the silhouette against the flame. Effective description is the wizard-wing, inducing vivid flight. Effective description is the lightning streak, followed by thunders of thought.” (Betty Earl, from 'Strength in the Lightning-Flash', 1923)
—: The Shell & The Tear :— I shaped a poem from a shell; Its fragile curves I loved full well. I shaped another from a tear— A little human sorrow-sphere. The first was formed with matchless grace; Its thin perfection shone like lace. The second, less divinely wrought, Held only one shy, wistful thought. I sent them forth, believing well The tear would come; would stay, the shell. But lo, life knew another way! The shell came back; the tear did stay.
—: Spirit :— A dead leaf Summons grief; A dead tree Bends the knee; A dead man, Wrecks god's plan.
—: Then Night :— Like snowy sheep that stray Beyond the bars, One by one, the waifs of cloud Slipped far away Until the great half-heaven lay Golden with its stars.
Betty Earl (p. 1917-1923, etc.) was a poet and short-story writer from Nevada, Missouri. Little is known of her life, apart from a few poems published in the late-1910s and early-1920s in American Poetry and Tempo. Was included in the anthology The Poet’s Pack, edited by John G. Neihardt.
Two Fragments For Betty Earl By Dick Whyte ❖ wrap your songs in feathers plant them in a field and hope like hell it rains— ❖ where do poems come from worlds bent into words? from the singers up on high those we call the birds— ❖
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brilliant images!
“sorrow-sphere” !!!!!