Claire Bu Zard - 3 Short Poems (1917-1921)

Forgotten Poems #85 || Reissue #2

     
              —: A Question :—

       Did you ever lie in a man’s arms
            and hate him;

       And mend your children’s clothes
       And look out across the front lawn
       And wonder dully what you’d get for lunch?

       Did you ever walk along the boulevard
       On a hot afternoon
       Wheeling a baby,—
       A pretty golden haired baby
       That you’d like to paint
       But couldn’t.
       And it cried and had to be fed,
       And you hated it?

       Did you ever serve dinner to a silent man
       Reading a paper;
       And after washing up the dishes
       Sit alone and twist your wedding ring
       And hate it?

       And plan your next day’s work while
       Taking down your unkept hair
       And wonder why you looked so old and
       Wrinkled and so bent
       At thirty?

       And did you ever go to bed and wait,—
       And wait—
       And dread the arms you waited for,—
       Those hot and selfish arms of the man
       You lived with,
       Cooked for, claimed to love,—
       and hated?
      

      
              —: Comfortable :—

       My husband has a happy brain—
       It rests in warmth before the fire,
       (Companioned by a pipe and chair)
       He never teases it with problems that
       Are hard to solve;
       He never prods or even tickles it;
       But lets it rests in quiet and in peace
       Before the fire—
       (Wrapped in the smoky wreaths);
       Happy, happy, HAPPY brain!
     

      
              —: The Beauty Lover :—

       The round, pink, laughing girl bathes,
       And the thin, grey, silent girl watches . . . . . 
       And afterwards,
       When the bather dries herself,
       And puts powder under her arms,
       And lies down, like a sleepy flower,
       The grey girl catches her around the hips, violently, 
       And kisses her:
       Surprised, the pink girl draws away;
       And the grey girl—
       (Poor little restless lover of beauty)—
       Apologizes
              And is ashamed.
       

There is almost nothing known about Claire Bu Zard, besides a handful of poems published between 1917-1921. While there is no guarantee that Bu Zard’s poems are autobiographical, they paint an interesting picture. The first two concern what was clearly an unhappy marriage, and were published in the New York socialist and feminist magazine, The Masses in 1917. The final poem concerns a young girl’s experiences of being queer in a straight world, and the confusions that can occur when trying to interpret relationships.

Perhaps Bu Zard was herself in such a marriage prior to 1917, and once leaving this, moved to New York to join the feminist and socialist movements? She would then go on to publish in Pagan, an underground, avant-garde poetry magazine, and was included in the anthology Poetic Erotica, edited by T.R. Smith and published privately for subscribers, due to the heavy restrictions surrounding eroticism, and queer literature in general. Perhaps this points to Bu Zard herself being queer? This might explain some of the deep unhappiness she felt in her marriage? Of course, all of this is pure speculation. Regardless, the poems that she has left behind are not only striking as poetry, but provide piercing insights into the experiences of women in the early-1900s.

Illustration by Maurice Becker, a well-known Marxist artist whose work appeared in socialist magazines like The Masses and The Liberator.

This is a reissue of Forgotten Poets #2, with two new poems by Bu Zard, and an after-poem hot off the press by me. Enjoy!

     
              —: For Claire Bu Zard :—
                       By Dick Whyte

             I.

       like Eve
       seek the knowledge
       of trees

       be not adamant
       in your understandings

       but dormant

             II.

       avoid the cold
       and if your covenant
       with water
       should ever polarise
       into ice,

       melt into song

              III.

       be the rain
       warmed by the woods
       steaming

       molecular freedom

             III.

       a staff becomes a snake
       becomes a letter

       a forest
       becomes an alphabet
       of gods

             IV.

       cast out of the garden
       no matter,

       i am that false prophet
       sharing
       in the wildness necessary
       for pro       creation
    

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