Elizabeth Jennings

[Empty Chairs]

"Friends" was read out in assembly last week, and I think I'm becoming a fan. I've searched for her on Google and Plagiarist, but found very little. I hear she went through a mental breakdown and wrote a lot about it. I'd be very interested to read some of that, having been through similar stuff myself. Could anybody recommend specific poems, and/or places I could find a good range of Jennings' work? Thanks a lot.

Laura Mary

[gwen]

The only poem by her I've ever come across is One Flesh, which I did in school:

One Flesh

Lying apart now, each in a separate bed,
He with a book, keeping the light on late,
She like a girl dreaming of childhood,
All men elsewhere - it is as if they wait
Some new event: the book he holds unread,
Her eyes fixed on the shadows overhead.

Tossed up like flotsam from a former passion,
How cool they lie. They hardly ever touch,
Or if they do, it is like a confession
Of having little feeling - or too much.
Chastity faces them, a destination
For which their whole lives were a preparation.

Strangely apart, yet strangely close together,
Silence between them like a thread to hold
And not wind in. And time itself's a feather
Touching them gently. Do they know they're old,
These two who are my father and my mother
Whose fire from which I came, has now grown cold?

[Empty Chairs]

Thanks Gwen!

[Sandra Piche]

Hi Laura, you may want to check out this link: PoemHunter.com - Elizabeth Jennings (http://www.poemhunter.com/elizabeth-jennings/poet-6617/)

If that link doesn't work, just go to poemhunter.com and search for her work. There's about 10 poems listed there, I think, including the one gwen posted.

Enjoy!
Sandra

[Empty Chairs]

Thanks, Sandra, that's great.

I'm a fan of Anne Sexton too. :p