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| spring grass at Willow Manor |
I picked up a lovely hardback copy of Janet Frame's autobiography, An Angel At My Table, at G-Dub last Friday. I fell in love with Frame several years ago, after seeing Jane Campion's film, by the same title. Today I sat down to read, and was bowled over by this brief, but stunning, first chapter:
The future accumulates like a weight upon the past. The weight upon the earliest years is easier to remove to let that time spring up like grass that has been crushed. The years following childhood become welded to their future, massed like stone, and often the time beneath cannot spring back into growth like new grass: it lies bled of its green in a new shape with those frail bloodless sprouts of another, unfamiliar time, entangled one with the other beneath the stone.
Frame's Pocket Mirror, 1967, a collection of some of her poetry is brilliant, by the way.
I wouldn't mind signing my name to that paragraph.
ReplyDeleteHave not yet read the biography, much less seen the film. But I have read a couple of Frame's novels (wonderful). Will have to locate the book of poems. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing this paragraph...beautiful to the bone. I Loved the movie "An angel at my table".
ReplyDeleteThis passage is lovely and poetic and so...sure of itself. Frame certainly knows the power of words :)
ReplyDeleteAnother one to add to my list. Really you will make so many holes in my purse with your good recommendations willow!
ReplyDeletewhat a lovely read...where did our childhood go???
ReplyDeleteI totally love her autobiography. Once I was teaching a class in writing and I read from her first chapter to the class. They were so stunned by her prose that it had the opposite effect that I had intended. They felt they could never write compared to her amazing prose.
ReplyDeleteHave you read any of her novels? One detailing her experience of ten years or so in the mental hospital??? I forget the title. At one time I read everything of hers i could get my hands on. However, havent read any poetry!
Love the movie too.
Suki I've read "Towards Another Summer" published after her death...which I enjoyed immensely...read some of her poetry...it's absolutely brilliant...
ReplyDeleteIt is a breathtaking piece of writing....you always have such wonderful literary things to share here Tess. The poet in you is what would make you an amazing and inspiring teacher. :-)
ReplyDeleteTess, I don't know if you've been by my blog lately but I wanted to share a poem I wrote. It's for Elspeth Thompson, a wonderful journalist, author, and gardener who committed suicide in 2010.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.mrssplapthing.blogspot.com/2012/03/poem-for-elspeth.html
Came here via Marcheline's sidebar list - and glad I did.
ReplyDeleteI love your profile, Tess. I think I may do a posting sometime on brilliant profiles.
I'm so glad I saw this. I loved the book which I read many years ago. You've reminded me to dig it out and reread it.
ReplyDeleteHow wonderful to return to the blog world, pass by to visit your Willow Manor and encounter this fantastic paragraph. I too am a Campion's fan! Your blog is as lovely as I remember :)
ReplyDeleteOh lucky you, reading this for the first time!
ReplyDeleteI'm part way through "To the Is-land" and looking forward to the next in the series. I think sukipoet must be referring to "Owls Do Cry."
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