May Sarton (3/5/1912 – 16/7/1995)
Ποιήτρια, ΗΠΑ
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The themes presented in the writings of May Sarton are love and friendship, illness and the aging process, and animals and nature, as well as paintings and portraits. Her own friendships included such intimate relations with women that she is sometimes described as a feminist and a lesbian. She declared that, “The militant lesbians want me to be a lesbian, and I’m just not.” Her preference was to avoid such restricted categories although she did have long-term relations with some women, such as Marie Closset and Simmons College Professor Judith Matlock, whose death in 1982 was devastating. In any event, the feminist and lesbian movements do boldly acknowledge the heroic social advance evident through Sarton’s life and writings.
Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing, 1965, is often referred to as Sarton's "coming out" novel and one she admits she could not have written while her parents were alive. With its reissue in 1974, to which Carolyn Heilbrun contributed an important introduction, Sarton's work gained academic recognition, especially by feminist critics. Subsequently her work began to be studied in literature classes and college women's studies programs. Although she appreciated the recognition, Sarton believed that the label "lesbian writer" might limit and distort perception of her work. She wanted to be read as a writer who dealt with themes of universal interest. She had, in fact, already written novels about family and married life.
The women Sarton loved were the catalyst for her poetry. In the presence of the muse and in the creative act of writing poetry, Sarton found a "spirituality." In her June 1974 article "The Practice of Two Crafts" for the Christian Science Monitor, Sarton says "Perhaps every true poem is a dialogue with God" and "when we are able to write a poem we become for a few hours part of Creation itself."
Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing, 1965, is often referred to as Sarton's "coming out" novel and one she admits she could not have written while her parents were alive. With its reissue in 1974, to which Carolyn Heilbrun contributed an important introduction, Sarton's work gained academic recognition, especially by feminist critics. Subsequently her work began to be studied in literature classes and college women's studies programs. Although she appreciated the recognition, Sarton believed that the label "lesbian writer" might limit and distort perception of her work. She wanted to be read as a writer who dealt with themes of universal interest. She had, in fact, already written novels about family and married life.
The women Sarton loved were the catalyst for her poetry. In the presence of the muse and in the creative act of writing poetry, Sarton found a "spirituality." In her June 1974 article "The Practice of Two Crafts" for the Christian Science Monitor, Sarton says "Perhaps every true poem is a dialogue with God" and "when we are able to write a poem we become for a few hours part of Creation itself."
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A PAIR OF HANDS
Indeed I loved these hands and knew them well—
Nervous, expressive, holding a Chinese pink,
A child, a book always withdrawn and still
As if they had it in their power to think:
Hands that the Flemish masters have explored,
Who gave delicate strength and mystic grace
To contemplative men, to women most adored
As if to give the inmost heart a face—
Indeed I learned to love these secret hands
Before I found them here, open to mine,
And clasped the mystery no one understands,
Read reverence in their fivefold design,
Where animals and children may be healed
And in the slightest gesture Love revealed.
Indeed I loved these hands and knew them well—
Nervous, expressive, holding a Chinese pink,
A child, a book always withdrawn and still
As if they had it in their power to think:
Hands that the Flemish masters have explored,
Who gave delicate strength and mystic grace
To contemplative men, to women most adored
As if to give the inmost heart a face—
Indeed I learned to love these secret hands
Before I found them here, open to mine,
And clasped the mystery no one understands,
Read reverence in their fivefold design,
Where animals and children may be healed
And in the slightest gesture Love revealed.
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