Spinozablue: An Eclectic Journal of the Arts

Posted on: December 14, 2010

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Miranda  —  The Tempest. 1916. By John William Waterhouse

We have new poetry from Ann Applegarth below.

The ocean, the strand, the inter­ac­tion between self and sea, between our Being in the world ver­sus our Seeing in the world …

Humanity long ago left the realm of an easy one­ness with Nature, but a par­al­lel belief held on, at least through the Romantic period: women were nat­u­rally still with Her. Nature itself was fem­i­nine. Men had lost the link, but not women, and men could retain that link indi­rectly through women.

Women no doubt view this male con­struct some­what dif­fer­ently. Perhaps rad­i­cally so. Some may find it offen­sive, sad, silly, amus­ing, and a host of other things. But it is with us still, in our poetry and art, our music, per­haps our sub­con­scious minds.…

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Posted on: December 6, 2010

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LANDLUBBER IN LOVE

I smelled the sea today!

The aroma of salt-​​​​crusted roses,
of mother-​​​​of-​​​​pearl, of adven­ture,
shared its romance
unwill­ingly
with
one who is
no part of it.

YOU KNOW THEM AS WELL AS I DO

I never was a woman who could
fling a hank of lus­trous hair over her right
shoul­der to punc­tu­ate declar­a­tive
sen­tences, or one who appears frag­ile
and small when crying.

Those glossy women have the edge
in life, while the rest of us strug­gle
against the odds, grop­ing for words
to fling, words that sel­dom have the
tex­ture of silk or the imme­di­acy of a
grace­fully exe­cuted fem­i­nine gesture.

And when we cry
oh, when we cry, our bod­ies grow
steel-​​​​like and huge, our blotched faces
con­tort, and our dis­cor­dant sobs
rever­ber­ate even unto three generations.…

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