This week: Lizette Woodworth Reese Edited by: Stormy Lady More Newsletters By This Editor
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This is poetry from the minds and the hearts of poets on Writing.Com. The poems I am going to be exposing throughout this newsletter are ones that I have found to be, very visual, mood setting and uniquely done. Stormy Lady |
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Wise
by Lizette Woodworth Reese
An apple orchard smells like wine;
A succory flower is blue;
Until Grief touched these eyes of mine,
Such things I never knew.
And now indeed I know so plain
Why one would like to cry
When spouts are full of April rain-
Such lonely folk go by!
So wise, so wise-that my tears fall
Each breaking of the dawn;
That I do long to tell you all-
But you are dead and gone.
Mid-March
By Lizette Woodworth Reese
It is too early for white boughs, too late
For snows. From out the hedge the wind lets fall
A few last flakes, ragged and delicate.
Down the stripped roads the maples start their small,
Soft, ’wildering fires. Stained are the meadow stalks
A rich and deepening red. The willow tree
Is woolly. In deserted garden-walks
The lean bush crouching hints old royalty,
Feels some June stir in the sharp air and knows
Soon ’twill leap up and show the world a rose.
The days go out with shouting; nights are loud;
Wild, warring shapes the wood lifts in the cold;
The moon’s a sword of keen, barbaric gold,
Plunged to the hilt into a pitch black cloud.
On January 9, 1856, David Woodworth Reese, a soldier in the confederate army and his German wife, Louisa welcomed twin daughters Lizette and Sophia, into their family. The couple had four daughters altogether. The Reese family lived in Huntingdon, Maryland, which is now called Waverly. As a child Lizette attended school in Baltimore, Maryland. She graduated at seventeen and started her teaching career right away.
Reese’s first teaching job was in the parish school of St. John's Episcopal Church inWaverly, Maryland. She taught the young children there for three years before moving on. Reese then became employed in Baltimore public schools. She taught in an English, German school first than in an African American high school for four years. In 1901, Reese started teaching at Western High School for girls, where she taught English until she retired in 1921.
Lizette wrote her poetry from very early on in her life. Her first poem was "The Deserted House," published in the Southern Magazine, in June 1874. Lizette continued writing poems weekly and month for publication in different magazines for the next few years. In 1887 she published her first book of thirty-three poems, A Branch of May. In 1891 the poems from her first book and some additional poems made up her second book, A Handful of Lavender, and then in 1896 Lizette published A Quiet Road. Lizette wrote little for the next thirteen years. In 1899 she published the sonnet “Tears.” She published Spicewood in 1920, followed by Wild Cherry in 1923. Then she published White April and Other Poems in 1930, The York Road in 1931, and Pastures and Other Poems in 1933.
Lizette Woodworth Reese died on December 17, 1935. Her remains are buried, St. John's Episcopal Church, Beltsville, Maryland.
That Day you came
by Lizette Woodworth Reese
Such special sweetness was about
That day God sent you here,
I knew the lavender was out,
And it was mid of year.
Their common way the great winds blew,
The ships sailed out to sea;
Yet ere that day was spent I knew
Mine own had come to me.
As after song some snatch of tune
Lurks still in grass or bough,
So, somewhat of the end o' June
Lurks in each weather now.
The young year sets the buds astir,
The old year strips the trees;
But ever in my lavender
I hear the brawling bees.
For me the jasmine buds unfold
And silver daisies star the lea,
The crocus hoards the sunset gold,
And the wild rose breathes for me.
I feel the sap through the bough returning,
I share the skylark's transport fine,
I know the fountain's wayward yearning,
I love, and the world is mine!
I love, and thoughts that sometime grieved,
Still well remembered, grieve not me;
From all that darkened and deceived
Upsoars my spirit free.
For soft the hours repeat one story,
Sings the sea one strain divine;
My clouds arise all flushed with glory --
I love, and the world is mine!
Oh, Gray And Tender Is The Rain
by Lizette Woodworth Reese
Oh, gray and tender is the rain,
That drips, drips on the pane!
A hundred things come in the door,
The scent of herbs, the thought of yore.
I see the pool out in the grass,
A bit of broken glass;
The red flags running wet and straight,
Down to the little flapping gate.
Lombardy poplars tall and three,
Across the road I see;
There is no loveliness so plain
As a tall poplar in the rain.
But oh, the hundred things and more,
That come in at the door! --
The smack of mint, old joy, old pain,
Caught in the gray and tender rain.
Thank you all!
Stormy Lady
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The winner of "Stormy's poetry newsletter & contest" [ASR] is:
Memories haunt me late into the night
When your rage was my teenage plight.
An evil stepfather's disgraced action
Brought him a warped satisfaction.
I tried hard to extinguish your loathing,
Your troubled mind was disclosing.
I heard your harsh whispers slander my dad,
Me looking like him made you mad.
Like a child, you spread false rumors of me.
Threw me to the curve like debris.
So, I took off and traveled about.
My life was better being kicked out!
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