With a shock of dyed red hair, statement glasses, and colourful sweaters, Lorna Jean Crozier dresses as eccentric as she writes. Although she never considered writing as a career when she was young, at 68 she has authored 15 books. Crozier has lived everywhere from Victoria to Toronto, but to me, her poetry shows that her heart has never left the Saskatchewan Prairies where she was born. Her works often showcase her interests, including cats, gardening, and sex--sometimes rolled together.
Her poetry is greatly informed by her childhood in hockey town Swift Current, Saskatchewan, with that environmental aesthetic often forming the backdrop to her stories of poverty, alcoholism, and the natural world. As a prairie girl myself, it’s easy for me to picture the agricultural landscapes and rustic animals described in poems such as “Inventing the Hawk”. Her authorial voice is wistful yet confessional, a voice that looks back fondly, but not blind to the issues of the past. Sex is also a recurring theme of her work, and the intimacies of her relationship with her husband Patrick Lane are a common topic of her work. One of her poems, “Watching My Lover”, tells of Lane bathing his dying mother, the mother’s scent lingering "so everyone who lies with him / will know he’s still / his mother’s son". Animals from cats to horses feature heavily in her work, tying in once again to her love of nature.
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In her eyes, cucumbers are pesky perverts with an anal fetish, carrots are passionate but worried lovers, peas are prudish, and onions are entirely self obsessed. The poems are at once funny and relatable, covering various ways sex is seen by people in society in a way that’s not alienating or deliberately button-pushing. It’s simple truth through a lens of good humor, a signature trait of her
"Everyone is influenced by their childhood. The things I write about and illustrate come from a vast range of inputs, from the earliest impressions of a little child, others from things I saw yesterday and still others from completely out of the blue, though no doubt they owe their arrival to some stimulus, albeit unconscious. I have a great love of wildlife, inherited from my parents, which show through in my subject matter, though always with a view to the humorous—not as a reflective device but as a reflection of my own fairly happy nature.
Richey assigns Kingsolver to organize and shelve every book in the library. In doing so, literature saved Kingsolver from the dullness of her day-to-day life. Nevertheless, monotony was not her only problem. She also had no passion or drive for school, but was uncertain about life, even going as far as to say, “I was developing a lean and hungry outlook.” But what that, ‘hungry outlook’ was for, was uncertain; she saw few career paths with the ‘practical’ skills she had learned in Home Economics, luckily, that aspect of her life would come from not within, but from the hallowed halls of the library, and from the dusty pages of classic literature. Her time categorizing books for Richey enlightened Kingsolver to the works of great writers, exposing her to the vast worlds, hidden, waiting to be found. Kingsolver most definitely found those world, immersing herself into them, allowing them to seep to the furthest corners of her brain, and changing her rural outlook to one of sophistication. This passion for reading allowed her to develop a sense of career, and facilitated her future as a writer. It did for her what schooling could not: give her a passion for
Influenced by the style of “plainspoken English” utilized by Phillip Larkin (“Deborah Garrison”), Deborah Garrison writes what she knows, with seemingly simple language, and incorporating aspects of her life into her poetry. As a working mother, the narrator of Garrison’s, “Sestina for the Working Mother” provides insight for the readers regarding inner thoughts and emotions she experiences in her everyday life. Performing the daily circus act of balancing work and motherhood, she, daydreams of how life might be and struggles with guilt, before ultimately realizing her chosen path is what it right for her and her family.
Jane presents one aspect of woman in The Waking collection (1953): Ross-Bryant views Jane as a young girl who is dead. The poem expresses concern with the coming of death. This poignant elegy is presen...
By presenting the competing sets of industrial and rural values, Jewett's "A White Heron" gives us a rich and textured story that privileges nature over industry. I think the significance of this story is that it gives us an urgent and emphatic view about nature and the dangers that industrial values and society can place upon it and the people who live in it. Still, we are led to feel much like Sylvia. I think we are encouraged to protect nature, cherish our new values and freedoms, and resist the temptations of other influences that can tempt us to destroy and question the importance of the sublime gifts that living in a rural world can bestow upon us.
Since its first appearance in the 1886 collection A White Heron and Other Stories, the short story A White Heron has become the most favorite and often anthologized of Sarah Orne Jewett. Like most of this regionalist writer's works, A White Heron was inspired by the people and landscapes in rural New England, where, as a little girl, she often accompanied her doctor father on his visiting patients. The story is about a nine-year-old girl who falls in love with a bird hunter but does not tell him the white heron's place because her love of nature is much greater. In this story, the author presents a conflict between femininity and masculinity by juxtaposing Sylvia, who has a peaceful life in country, to a hunter from town, which implies her discontent with the modernization?s threat to the nature.
Sex is more than just a physical act. It's a beautiful way to express love. When people have sex just to fulfill a physical need, as the poet believes sex outside of love-based relationship only harms and cheapens sex. In the beginning of the poem, Olds brilliantly describe the beauty of sex, and then in the second half of the poem, she continues reference to the cold and aloneness which clearly shows her opinions about causal sex. Through this poem, Sharon Olds, has expressed her complete disrespect for those who would participate in casual sex.
When Kenyon got married to another poet, Donald Hall, her world became completely turned around after she left her old life behind and moved to Eagle Pond Farm in 1975 (Gundy). These new surroundings influenced Kenyon in ways she could never have imagined, making her feel as though she was part of something great and giving her a sense of community and togetherness (Gundy). As Kenyon stated, “It makes one less self-obsessed...it gives you a feeling that you are part of the great stream” stressing the importance of the ideology that working together does achieve more (qtd. in Gundy). As Hall and Kenyon never had any children of their own, Kenyon often explored the farm she lived at with her dog, waking up early every morning to write and wander (Hall). This routine is clearly explicated in her poem “After An Illness, Walking The Dog” where she recalls how in the mornings, “Soaked and muddy, the dog drops, / panting, and looks up… / It’s so good to be uphill with him, / nicely winded and looking down on the pond” where she felt the most at peace (lines 20-23). During the summer time, Kenyon enjoyed her other favorite pastime which was gardening and she had a natural affinity to any nature that grew outside, especially flowers and trees (Hall). In one of her most famous works, “The Pond at Dusk”, Kenyon admires the way that “The green haze on the trees changes / into leaves and what looks like smoke / floating over the neighbor’s barn / is only apple blossoms”, validating her deep knowledge of the natural world (lines 5-8). While living in New Hampshire, Kenyon enjoyed going to church and worshipping God gave her a feeling of hope, knowing that she was never alone (Gundy). This feeling translated deeply into her writings, especially in the poem “Let Evening Come” where she tells the reader, “Let it come, as it will, and don’t /
The idea of having many different aspects of human experience is central to Gwen Harwood’s anthology of Selected Poems. In her works, Harwood explores many specific situations and circumstances associated with encountering human experiences; from childhood pleasures, innocence, emotion, celebration and passion, to the dullness and misery of domestic suburban life. Harwood utilizes a range of characters in her writing, adopting personas and pseudonyms in order to transform what may be seen as often very personal and private experiences into universal facets of human existence. By using her own personal journey towards self-knowledge and experience of growing up, Harwood is able to comment on the aspects of unconcealed and uncensored events in
In the poem “what the living do,” by Marie Howe explores the emotional impact of incest and death on a woman from childhood to adulthood.
Dorothy Parker’s poems in The Portable Dorothy Parker vary from humorous commentary on romance to social critique, but her format holds on to the rigidity of older styles. While several writers choose this time period to step outside of the normal confines of writing norms, Parker retains a vintage format of strict end-rhymes and polished line lengths. Her use of comedic devices lines up with the typical craft choices that emerged in the twentieth century; however, her approach is much different than anything else of her time. She creates a tension between several dimensions—gender and expectations, format and content, humor and serious issues—that makes her work so complex.
The third decade of the twentieth century brought on more explicit writers than ever before, but none were as expressive as Anne Sexton. Her style of writing, her works, the image that she created, and the crazy life that she led are all prime examples of this. Known as one of the most “confessional” poets of her time, Anne Sexton was also one of the most criticized. She was known to use images of incest, adultery, and madness to reveal the depths of her deeply troubled life, which often brought on much controversy. Despite this, Anne went on to win many awards and go down as one of the best poets of all time.
Lesley Choyce is a Nova Scotian author and publisher of Pottersfield Press, who offers insight on life that focuses on the natural landscape around his home. This insight derived from his unidentified personal crisis. Choyce examines his life in the Seven Ravens, as an act of therapeutic nature writing that interweaves a philosophical and perceptive memoir. He writes about his journey over a two-year span of self-understanding by exploring everything around him. For example, Choyce uses ravens as a benchmark to guide him along his journey. Thus, he decides to hike north from his house until he has passed seven ravens, and then he returns home.
This creates a nostalgic and warm mood. As she reminisces about the vivid imagery surrounding surrounding her during her childhood, the mood greatly develops. It is extremely visible when the author says “learning how to stalk wild raspberries before breakfast, and how to find fungus in the forest”. The current connotations about foraging seem to always include a rustic and natural feeling, and
Overall, the imagery that Plath creates is framed by her diction and is used to convey her emotions toward all relationships and probably even her own marriage to Ted Hughes, who had rude, disorderly habits. Even the structure of the poem is strict in appearance as each stanza ends with a period and consists of exactly six lines. In addition, the persona of the poem is very detached and realistic, so much that it is hard to distinguish between her and Plath, herself. However, Plath insinuates that the woman actually wants love deep down, but finds the complexity and unpredictability of love to be frightening. As a result, she settles for solitude as a defense against her underlying fear.