A Private Mythology: Poems
By May Sarton
4.5/5
()
About this ebook
In celebration of her fiftieth birthday, May Sarton embarked on a pilgrimage around the world. Traveling through Japan, India, and Greece, she captured her spiritual discoveries in this vivid collection of poetry. Arresting images and meditations on the differences between East and West are rendered with the exceptional clarity of an accomplished artist.
Winner of the Emily Clark Balch Prize.
May Sarton
May Sarton (1912–1995) was born on May 3 in Wondelgem, Belgium, and grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her first volume of poetry, Encounters in April, was published in 1937 and her first novel, The Single Hound, in 1938. Her novels A Shower of Summer Days, The Birth of a Grandfather, and Faithful Are the Wounds, as well as her poetry collection In Time Like Air, all received nominations for the National Book Award. An accomplished memoirist, Sarton came out as a lesbian in her 1965 book Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing. Her memoir Journal of a Solitude (1973) was an account of her experiences as a female artist. Sarton spent her later years in York, Maine, living and writing by the sea. In her last memoir, Endgame: A Journal of the Seventy-Ninth Year (1992), she shares her own personal thoughts on getting older. Her final poetry collection, Coming into Eighty, was published in 1994. Sarton died on July 16, 1995, in York, Maine.
Read more from May Sarton
At Eighty-Two: A Journal Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Journal of a Solitude Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAs We Are Now: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The House by the Sea: A Journal Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5After the Stroke: A Journal Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5At Seventy: A Journal Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Faithful Are the Wounds: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Shower of Summer Days: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Endgame: A Journal of the Seventy-Ninth Year Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Encore: A Journal of the Eightieth Year Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Collected Poems, 1930–1993 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Magnificent Spinster: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Writings on Writing Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Plant Dreaming Deep: A Journal Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Inner Landscape: Poems Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Journals of May Sarton Volume One: Journal of a Solitude, Plant Dreaming Deep, and Recovering Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Coming into Eighty: Poems Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Small Room: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Recovering: A Journal Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKinds of Love: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Novels of May Sarton Volume One: Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing, A Shower of Summer Days, and The Magnificent Spinster Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Reckoning: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I Knew a Phoenix: Sketches for an Autobiography Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Anger: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A World of Light: Portraits and Celebrations Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Education of Harriet Hatfield: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Crucial Conversations: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5May Sarton: A Self-Portrait Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to A Private Mythology
Related ebooks
A Nancy Willard Reader: Selected Poetry and Prose Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Becoming Light: Poems New and Selected Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Death Benefits: Poems Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Great American Poets: New Hampshire, Tender Buttons, Select Poems, and Selected Poems Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Encounter in April: Poems Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5New Hampshire: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Haw Lantern: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Names and Rivers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPictograph: Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe God of Loneliness: Selected and New Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDoor into the Dark: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sixfold Poetry Summer 2019 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Evening Sun: A Journal in Poetry Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Wrapped in Folds of Midnight Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPink: Poems Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Best American Poetry 2014 Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Sixfold Poetry Winter 2017 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSaudade Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Trace: Poems Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Sonnets from the Portuguese and Other Poems Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5An Anthology of Poetry: Poetry by Kelly Woods Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBest of the Best American Poetry: 25th Anniversary Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Open Door: 100 Poems, 100 Years of Poetry Magazine Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Poetry Of Alan Seeger: “I have a rendezvous with death... I will not fail that rendezvous” Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRed Lines: Designs of the Mind Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWalking Backwards: Poems 1966-2016 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sublime Blue: Selected Early Odes of Pablo Neruda Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Selected Poems of Hafiz Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Precious Poetry: From PROBLEM to POEM in 7 steps Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStrong Is Your Hold: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Poetry For You
For colored girls who have considered suicide/When the rainbow is enuf Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Divine Comedy: Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Canterbury Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Iliad: The Fitzgerald Translation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Iliad of Homer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Odyssey: (The Stephen Mitchell Translation) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Leaves of Grass: 1855 Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Odyssey Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dante's Divine Comedy: Inferno Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Selected Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tao Te Ching: A New English Version Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Divine Comedy: Inferno Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Love Her Wild: Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Prophet Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5You Better Be Lightning Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Beowulf Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Gilgamesh: A New English Version Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Way Forward Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Daily Stoic: A Daily Journal On Meditation, Stoicism, Wisdom and Philosophy to Improve Your Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Inward Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Twenty love poems and a song of despair Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Weary Blues Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Complete Poems of John Keats (with an Introduction by Robert Bridges) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dante's Inferno: The Divine Comedy, Book One Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bedtime Stories for Grown-ups Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Complete Poems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Things We Don't Talk About Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Odyssey Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEdgar Allan Poe: The Complete Collection Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Related categories
Reviews for A Private Mythology
3 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
A Private Mythology - May Sarton
A Private Mythology
Poems
May Sarton
TO
my students at Wellesley College
1960—1964
Contents
Publisher’s Note
The Beautiful Pauses
A Private Mythology—I
A Child’s Japan
A Country House
Kyoko
Japanese Prints
Shugaku-in, Imperial Villa
A Nobleman’s House
Inn at Kyoto
An Exchange of Gifts
The Stone Garden
Wood, Paper, Stone
The Approach—Calcutta
Notes from India
The Great Plain of India Seen from the Air
In Kashmir
The Sleeping God
Birthday on the Acropolis
Nostalgia for India
A Greek Meal
On Patmos
Another Island
At Lindos
At Delphi
Pastoral
Ballads of the Traveler
Lazarus
A Private Mythology—II
Heureux qui, comme Ulysse …
Of Havens
The House in Winter
Still Life in Snowstorm
A Fugue of Wings
An Observation
Learning about Water
An Artesian Well
A Late Mowing
A Country Incident
Second Thoughts on the Abstract Gardens of Japan
The Animal World
A Village Tale
The Horse-Pulling
Franz, a Goose
Lovers at the Zoo
The Great Cats and the Bears
Turtle
Death and the Turtle
Elegies and Celebrations
Elegy
Death of a Psychiatrist
Conversation in Black and White
The Walled Garden at Clondalkin
A Recognition
Joy in Provence
Baroque Image
A Biography of May Sarton
Publisher’s Note
Long before they were ever written down, poems were organized in lines. Since the invention of the printing press, readers have become increasingly conscious of looking at poems, rather than hearing them, but the function of the poetic line remains primarily sonic. Whether a poem is written in meter or in free verse, the lines introduce some kind of pattern into the ongoing syntax of the poem’s sentences; the lines make us experience those sentences differently. Reading a prose poem, we feel the strategic absence of line.
But precisely because we’ve become so used to looking at poems, the function of line can be hard to describe. As James Longenbach writes in The Art of the Poetic Line, Line has no identity except in relation to other elements in the poem, especially the syntax of the poem’s sentences. It is not an abstract concept, and its qualities cannot be described generally or schematically. It cannot be associated reliably with the way we speak or breathe. Nor can its function be understood merely from its visual appearance on the page.
Printed books altered our relationship to poetry by allowing us to see the lines more readily. What new challenges do electronic reading devices pose?
In a printed book, the width of the page and the size of the type are fixed. Usually, because the page is wide enough and the type small enough, a line of poetry fits comfortably on the page: What you see is what you’re supposed to hear as a unit of sound. Sometimes, however, a long line may exceed the width of the page; the line continues, indented just below the beginning of the line. Readers of printed books have become accustomed to this convention, even if it may on some occasions seem ambiguous—particularly when some of the lines of a poem are already indented from the left-hand margin of the page.
But unlike a printed book, which is stable, an ebook is a shape-shifter. Electronic type may be reflowed across a galaxy of applications and interfaces, across a variety of screens, from phone to tablet to computer. And because the reader of an ebook is empowered to change the size of the type, a poem’s original lineation may seem to be altered in many different ways. As the size of the type increases, the likelihood of any given line running over increases.
Our typesetting standard for poetry is designed to register that when a line of poetry exceeds the width of the screen, the resulting run-over line should be indented, as it might be in a printed book. Take a look at John Ashbery’s Disclaimer
as it appears in two different type sizes.