 Poetry: May 28, 2014 Issue [#6348] |
  Poetry
This week: Elizabeth Jennings Edited by: Stormy Lady  
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In a Garden
by Elizabeth Jennings
When the gardener has gone this garden
Looks wistful and seems waiting an event.
It is so spruce, a metaphor of Eden
And even more so since the gardener went,
Quietly godlike, but of course, he had
Not made me promise anything and I
Had no one tempting me to make the bad
Choice. Yet I still felt lost and wonder why.
Even the beech tree from next door which shares
Its shadow with me, seemed a kind of threat.
Everything was too neat, and someone cares
In the wrong way. I need not have stood long
Mocked by the smell of a mown lawn, and yet
I did. Sickness for Eden was so strong.
Elizabeth Jennings was born on July 18, 1926 in Boston, Lincolnshire. Her father was Chief Medical Officer at a local hospital. After receiving a new job offer he moved the family from Boston, Lincolnshire to Oxford when Jennings was six years old. Jennings started writing poetry while in high school. She went on to attend St Ann’s College.
Upon graduation from St Anne’s Jennings became a librarian at the Oxford City library. This job allowed her free time to write and focus on her poetry. Many of her first pieces were published in journals such as Oxford Poetry, New English Weekly, The Spectator. Her first volume of poetry was published in 1953. Jennings spent her life writing poetry and published over twenty books, her simplicity and style made her well liked by her readers. Her second book, A Way of Looking, was published in 1955.
Jennings traveled to Rome for three months after the success of her second book. While there she got a renewed belief in her religion and inspiration that fueled her poetic imagination. Her Roman Catholic beliefs echoed in her poetry as did her spouts will mental illnesses that often plagued her life. Jennings published A Sense of the World in 1958 followed by Song For a Bird or Death in 1961. She published new work every one to three years throughout her life including The Secret Brother and Other Poems for Children Collected Poems 1967 and The Animals' Arrival all published in the 1960’s. In the 1970’s and 80’s some of her publications included Growing Points and After the Ark in 1978, followed by Moments of Grace in 1980 and An Oxford cycle Poems in 1987. Her work in the 1990’s included Times and Seasons in 1992 and A Spell of Words: Selected Poems for Children in 1997.
Jennings lived her whole life in Oxford. She never married. She dedicated herself to writing and publishing her poetry all the way up until her death. Jennings died October 26 2001. Her last two publications were in 2001, Timely Issues and New Collected Poems.
In Memory of Anyone Unknown to Me
by Elizabeth Jennings
At this particular time I have no one
Particular person to grieve for, though there must
Be many, many unknown ones going to dust
Slowly, not remembered for what they have done
Or left undone. For these, then, I will grieve
Being impartial, unable to deceive.
How they lived, or died, is quite unknown,
And, by that fact gives my grief purity--
An important person quite apart from me
Or one obscure who drifted down alone.
Both or all I remember, have a place.
For these I never encountered face to face.
Sentiment will creep in. I cast it out
Wishing to give these classical repose,
No epitaph, no poppy and no rose
From me, and certainly no wish to learn about
The way they lived or died. In earth or fire
They are gone. Simply because they were human, I admire.
Absence
by Elizabeth Jennings
I visited the place where we last met.
Nothing was changed, the gardens were well-tended,
The fountains sprayed their usual steady jet;
There was no sign that anything had ended
And nothing to instruct me to forget.
The thoughtless birds that shook out of the trees,
Singing an ecstasy I could not share,
Played cunning in my thoughts. Surely in these
Pleasures there could not be a pain to bear
Or any discord shake the level breeze.
It was because the place was just the same
That made your absence seem a savage force,
For under all the gentleness there came
An earthquake tremor: Fountain, birds and grass
Were shaken by my thinking of your name.
Thank you all!
Stormy Lady
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