Poetry Magazine, Special Featured Poet: Grace Cavalieri, Spring 2004

Poetry Magazine

Grace Cavalieri

USA

photo by Claire Heath

Grace Cavalieri is presently writing a book of poems in the voice of 18th century Mary Wollstonecraft, who was the first woman author to write a “serious” book in English (forthcoming from Jacaranda Press.)

Grace is also writing a stage drama based on Wollstonecraft’s life (to be premiered by NYC’s” Xoregos Performing Company.”)

Her current play “Quilting the Sun” enjoyed a reading by its NYC cast at the Smithsonian Institution's Natural History Museum, 2003.
Cavalieri is the author of twelve books and chapbooks of poetry and eighteen produced plays. Her latest book of poetry is “Cuffed Frays” (Argonne House Press.) She’s written texts and lyrics performed for opera, stage and film.

Her recent book Pinecrest Rest Haven was produced as a play in NYC, 2001. This marks her 18th play on American stages. Grace was a founder of the radio station WPFW-FM. She has produced and hosted “The Poet and the Poem” on public radio for 25 years presenting 2,000 poets to the nation; She now broadcasts the series annually from the Library of Congress via NPR satellite. (www.loc.gov/poetry) The programs are archived in the GWU Gelman Library's Special Collections for the public's use.

Grace has received the Pen-Fiction Award, the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Award, The Corporation for Public Broadcasting Silver Medal, and awards from the National Commission on Working Women, The American Association of University Women, plus many others. She received the inaugural Columbia Merit Award from the Folger Library Poetry Committee for “significant contribution to poetry.” She has enjoyed the kindness of several Writing Fellowships.

Grace Cavalieri is President of the Washington based organization THE BUNNY AND THE CROCODILE PRESS (since 1977). Its media arm is FOREST WOODS MEDIA PRODUCTIONS, producing cultural programs for radio and television.
She was original founder of The Washington Writers Publishing House in 1976 which is still thriving today with 100 titles to its credit

She lives in Annapolis, Maryland with her husband, sculptor Kenneth Flynn. They have four grown daughters.

Mary Wollstonecraft was the first woman to write a serious book in English. 
She was the first to write argumentative prose, in her book A Vindication of 
the Rights of Woman. Her own life was one of unending conflict, seeking love 
and companionship of men, and battling to be an intellectual equal. 
She died in 1797, in childbirth, at the age of 38.
These are poems by Grace Cavalieri told in Mary Wollstonecraft's voice.

I Gave You My Work, Gilbert.

They published “The Emigrants”.
Some thought it was yours.
This, I gave. I gave.
Our baby, Fanny, I gave. I
Allowed being Mary Imlay. I gave
My name without a marrying.

My only Love,

You asked why I was studying botany.
It came from visiting Eton.
They were
Discussing the need for gentlemen
To know such subjects as
The theory of whales.

So then. You are gone.
You didn’t like the way I walked.
“Too determined.” You hated my
Arms swinging, “tense” you said.
Oh I would have bribed you, Gilbert,
With more than a book and a baby
If I could. I would have locked
You away in my heart
Forever. You said I talked too much.
Is that why you could not love me?

Did you know, my Darling Gilbert,
That whales move more by hearing than sight?
Or dare I not say what you do not know.

Mr. Johnson,1787

"Uncommon Kindness" is what I call you
Instead of "publisher". That is just what others say.
Telling me I am ' the first of a new genus!'
I tremble at the attempt.
We must not, on any account, inform my brother or father
For ridicule has always been the unfriendliest advice.

The October winds blow through London yet
I hear only your words exerting my mission.
I must be independent!
When a writer writes
The words are taken by the reader
But they always belong to the writer.

This body, unwilling recipient for spirit, finally fills
With the breath of confidence because of you.
Someone removed my brain and took away the fear
That someone is you, Mr. Johnson

My luck is changing
Today I stubbed my toe
And to the breaking said:
Thank you life. I feel something besides terror.

I have a body, a mind, a heart.
I invite the world to lay its head on my stomach and listen.

Poetry Is Best
(to my friend William Blake)

Poetry is best
If we do not think
To call it this.
There is only one poem,
Written over and over,
It is language pulled
Through the heart.
Poets give us
The courage
Of romantic love,
Said so well,
It must be true
But what is this relic
scrawled upon the page,
Nothing but a journey
Of life through opposites.
I write that mothers
should tend their own children
Then I leave mine.
The music in my life
Is running after love I cannot have,
The poem is something I can love
After I have run away.

Inflight

My Body's In Flight From My Feelings
Henry, all day my nightmare ears hear talk,
I nod my head, a reverent pause, a due show of unconcern
The spool of love unwinds, Henry.
Some speak to me "for my own good" perfumed voices.
I gaze into the middle air I consult my hands.
"One could be forgiven for believing that" (generously said)
Then a mad show of brightening all around me.
My gaze lifts inhospitably. I bid goodbye.
It is the most exhausting of all lives for a woman
To get what she needs then hold on to it, Henry.
I rummage my memory to trust in you, the talk of your wife
This home has something to tell me
I walk from room to room. There is somewhere here
A truth intruded
I cannot know alone.

What I Would Do For Love
                    (for William Godwin)

I would cook with berry juice until
Our clothes were red
Roast a lamb in the fire and carve meat for our empty purses
Climb the yellow tree with skirts pulled up
Sit above London singing my William throat.
The candles will burn in all rooms all day all summer
I will learn to sew
I will walk backwards until you come home
I will wear your garters, shine your keys, fold
Your papers for all the world to see
And windowsills too
I will perch there in motion with rain in my hair and the taste
Of cider as sincere as the dark you’ll come through.

To France

My body holds the memories
of a journey, some of pleasure,
one moon with its film of 
cloud over a pond winking
the pulse of a duck,
then the red red morning of sun shining on flower and weed.

I turn my leg to return home,
Summer crickets, food by a fire
a river I know; the harbor
holding a minute of my breath
until I see him.

Real writers would never write in public so
I hide to have a voice he can hear.

(He says I have the best mind and the sorriest body,
It's as if some brilliant goose had found its way
waddling indoors.)