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Poetry Lovers, Welcome back to SHINE - Featured Poets Series! Though I typically feature contemporary poets, as a special treat for National Poetry Month, today, it is my honor to posthumously publish the work of mid-20th century poet, Betty Wolcott Sandall. It is with the permission of Wolcott Sandall's family, that I share with you from a small chapbook called, Remembering. Please enjoy her beatiful lyric poems "Appointment for Spring," "Note of Challenge," and "I Could Not Speak a Word" -- the last of which addresses a core American social issue that was as relevant in Wolcott Sandall's day, as it was a century earlier when Emma Lazarus wrote "The New Colossus," or as it is in our own. Thank you, Candy Carlson, for keeping your grandmother's lovely words and legacy alive. Appointment for Spring I’ll wait where pale, green willows dream Through idle hours Above a trembling April stream. Come sun or showers I’ll wait for you where quickened buds awake To startled wonder; Till suddenly my breast will shake With strange, sweet thunder. Note of Challenge Better no words were said, today, of Spring – No whisper spoken. Wisely, the skeptic fears To mention miracles, remembering How hearts are rent by wraiths of happier years. Better to leave assurance to the pale Unfolding green of swamps; to birds which break Cold silences. For should these signs all fail, Such wild immortal beauty might not shake The wold again. Wiser that we inure Our hearts to meet the chill, the dark which lies About; yet when Spring comes, undaunted, sure, Could any human wish that he were wise? I Could Not Speak a Word She beamed and ushered me across the sill. “A nursery,” I cried and counted twelve, Twelve dimpled roguish tots. “This one is mine” – She pointed to a cherub in a crib. “And this” – it was a blue-eyed boy of two – “And Jean,” a lovely child with curly hair; “But all the rest are refugees.” She paused Expectantly. The room was far too still. Somehow I could not speak a single word. She was a sturdy ten-year-old and they – Were paper dolls.  Betty Wolcott Sandall,
of the American Northeast (who resided for a time in Burlington, Vermont), was an early/mid-20th century poet. Wolcott Sandall wrote under the psuedonym Mike O'Shay, and at least two of her poems were published in The New York Times during World War II. A chapbook of her poems, Remembering (depicted at Left), was compiled by her family. |
SHINE - International Poetry Series
From the international poetry community, we have a "luxury of stars," as Sylvia Plath might say, and it is my honor to provide a home for their words through SHINE Poetry Series.
NOW IN PRINT!
Stars Over the Dordogne
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