This slender volume made me wonder what my six cats might be thinking. Do they like me or do I annoy them? Are they content to watch birds from the sun porch or do they feel like prisoners being forced to live their lives indoors? May Sarton gets us into the mind of a former Tomcat About Town a...
How the central characters—students and teachers—react to the crisis and what effect the scandal has on their personal and professional lives are the central motifs of May Sarton's sensitive, probing novel.
This was a Book Club title. I found Laura a bit over the top in her obsession with women to women relationships and what they meant or didn't mean or should have meant etc. I know she is dying in the book and as such is entitled to do exactly what she wants till the end of her short time on earth...
The “magnificent spinster” is Jane Reid, a teacher who became not only a revered role model but a dear friend to Cam, the narrator of this novel within a novel. After Jane’s death, the accidental discovery of poems written by Cam in her youth to Jane prompts a flood of recollections—and frees Cam...
Mrs Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing is re-published by Open Road Media in 2014, with an introduction by Carolyn G Heilbrun. It first appeared in 1965, and was her first openly gay or lesbian novel. Sarton, the poet, diarist and novelist, tried to reject the label “lesbian writer”, preferring t...
Emotional and forthright, Anna battles against Ned's crippling reserve. In the clash of these two strong personalities, May Sarton explores the different ways that men and women express both anger and love.
When they do, the must be treasured as gifts from the White Goddess, "sister of the mirage and echo." To May Sarton, poetry was life's deepest creative passion. It reflected the preoccupations of her mind and emotions as she progressed through more than five decades of experiencing the natural wo...
When Harriet Hatfield opens a bookstore for women in a blue-collar neighborhood near Boston, she is bombarded by anonymous threats. And when the Boston Globe reports "Lesbian Bookstore Owner Threatened", her education in the narrow-mindedness of her fellow man—and woman—begins.
The author chronicles her efforts to regain her health after having suffered a stroke at the age of seventy-three, describes her self-proclaimed life of solitude, and offers keen observations on the natural world surrounding her.
Compilation of intense, spirited verse which explores the realms of religion, politics, nature, violence, and old age.
When I took Tamas down to the rocks to watch the surf, we had to run back—I was afraid he would be blown into the sea! After writing the poem I spent an hour cutting and reading aloud from As We Are Now for the evening at Notre Dame University when, at their suggestion, I shall take half the hour...
A Book and Author Lunch at Dartmouth College. It was foggy but by the time I was out in the country the fog was only making Chinese paintings with its swirls on distant hills, and I came home drunk all over again with the beauty of this New England. Everything I see now is seen freshly because I ...
Solti had embraced her as she was leaving the concert hall and said, “Do that tomorrow night, cara Anna, and all will be well!” Anna called room service for a chicken sandwich, hot milk, and a double Scotch, then walked up and down for a few minutes, went to the window to look down on the lights ...
The Lion and the Rose: Poems INDIAN DANCESO have you heard it, far off, the deep drumCalling from the Plaza all feet to come,Calling from the Plaza the blood in the wristTo beat with the drum, the heart in the chestTo beat with the drum, till the flesh is a fruitThat swells with the drum, and fro...
A Grain of Mustard Seed: Poems Dutch InteriorPieter de Hooch (1629-1682)I recognize the quiet and the charm,This safe enclosed room where a woman sewsAnd life is tempered, orderly, and calm.Through the Dutch door, half open, sunlight streamsAnd throws a pale square down on the red tiles.The cosy ...
Lucy, looking down from her office on the fourth floor of one of the oldest buildings, compared the campus to a stage where a complicated ballet was being rehearsed. Small groups flowed together and parted; a girl in a blue blazer ran from one building to another; five or six others arranged them...
Ann’s voice on the telephone the next morning had a tinge of asperity. “You know we want to help in any way we can.”“Dear Ann, the cake was wonderful. Aunt Minna ate three pieces.” Laura knew she couldn’t leave it at that. “Mrs. O’Brien really wants to walk Grindle, and I can understand that she ...
Halfway to Silence: Poems In SuffolkMourning my old ways, guilt fills the mind,As memories well up from ripening goldAnd I look far away over tilted landWatching splashed light and shadow on the foldWhere restless clouds flock over and disband.To what have I been faithful in the end?What lover lo...