Burning the Letters

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Woman Burning Love Letters: Retrospection (c. 1840)
by Alfred Chantrey Corbould (1852-1920)

Totally living up to the watchwords of "connection and coincidence," this blogpost got its start a few days ago when Brian Bilston posted his list of "Discarded First Lines," reminding me, in turn, of Gregory Corso's list of "Saleable Titles." I knew I had saved some Corso poems in one of my college notebooks, so I pulled it off the shelf and was thumbing through . . .

found the Corso . . .

and, wait, what?!
. . . this poem that has been on my search list
for the last 7 or 8 years!

Back in 2018, I wrote to a few
of my classmates from college days:

Dear Deanna, Milly, and Ruth,

I am trying to track down a poem that Herman Wilson gave us years ago to analyze -- it was called "Burning the Letters," and I could swear that the poet's name was "Kiligrew" or something like that. But no matter how I google it, nothing along those lines turns up, and I can't find it in any of my old books / papers. Any ideas?

If only Herman were still with us, I bet he would know it right off the top of his head! Alas . . .

Was I thinking of Sylvia Plath's poem -- also entitled "Burning the Letters"? Possibly. Yet, the name "Kiligrew" felt more like it to me. Could I have merged the two poems / poets in my mind because they were on the same page or we studied them at the same time? It wouldn't be the first time for such a mix-up in my head.

But at long last, thanks to Bilston and Corso, the mystery has been solved! It wasn't Plath, nor was it Kiligrew. It was Grew -- Gwendolyn Grew! Now, if only I could learn something more about this poet. If anyone has any information on Gwendolyn Grew, please let me know!

Burning the Letters

One flutter of memory, then all becomes
First blaze, then char. A Fall of after-thought,
And leaf by leaf, a slant wind numbs
Summer from the bone-tree. ’’Nothing is not

Something,” she thinks. And it is nothing now
To send a season blazing. Day by day
What greened, a sun-machine upon its bough,
Unsuns, ungreens, discolors toward decay.

Up from the bed now she can see the pale
Last glow of paper X-rayed by the bright
Underglow of the flame. A becalmed sail
It stirs, uncertain. Then it bursts a-light.

Like leaf-veins, the black lines stand in relief
As fire travels them clean. Then a black bloat
Riffles the page. Footless as a night-thief
The fire draft stirs them then, sets them afloat

And sucks them up to darkness, each a bat.
Till the last line has swollen and gone out
With its black mouse-bird. “How long have | sat
Here in self-pity?” she begins to doubt.

And still she kneels, and with a poker stirs
A last bird from the blaze, loving its flight.
Nursing the not-much hurt. But it is hers,
And nurse it she will through one more acted night.

Gwendolyn Grew

Postcard #817 ~ Sherie Series
By Inter-Art Co., Southampton House, London

And it seems only fair to conclude
with Plath's poem for comparison:

Burning The Letters

I made a fire; being tired
Of the white fists of old
Letters and their death rattle
When I came too close to the wastebasket
What did they know that I didn't?
Grain by grain, they unrolled
Sands where a dream of clear water
Grinned like a getaway car.
I am not subtle
Love, love, and well, I was tired
Of cardboard cartons the color of cement or a dog pack
Holding in it's hate
Dully, under a pack of men in red jackets,
And the eyes and times of the postmarks.

This fire may lick and fawn, but it is merciless:
A glass case
My fingers would enter although
They melt and sag, they are told
Do not touch.
And here is an end to the writing,
The spry hooks that bend and cringe and the smiles, the smiles
And at least it will be a good place now, the attic.
At least I won't be strung just under the surface,
Dumb fish
With one tin eye,
Watching for glints,
Riding my Arctic
Between this wish and that wish.

So, I poke at the carbon birds in my housedress.
They are more beautiful than my bodiless owl,
They console me—
Rising and flying, but blinded.
They would flutter off, black and glittering, they would be coal angels
Only they have nothing to say but anybody.
I have seen to that.
With the butt of a rake
I flake up papers that breathe like people,
I fan them out
Between the yellow lettuces and the German cabbage
Involved in it's weird blue dreams
Involved in a foetus.
And a name with black edges

Wilts at my foot,
Sinuous orchis
In a nest of root-hairs and boredom—
Pale eyes, patent-leather gutturals!
Warm rain greases my hair, extinguishes nothing.
My veins glow like trees.
The dogs are tearing a fox. This is what it is like
A read burst and a cry
That splits from it's ripped bag and does not stop
With that dead eye
And the stuffed expression, but goes on
Dyeing the air,
Telling the particles of the clouds, the leaves, the water
What immortality is. That it is immortal.

Sylvia Plath (1932 – 1963)
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