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Lesbian Poet Herstory Page Manager:
Trish Shields
bard@subee.com
Please contact Trish
with your questions or suggestions for
this section.
Click here for
information about Coast Lines
Trish's newest volume
of poetry.
Elsa Gidlow
Audre Lorde
Hilda Doolittle
Michael Field
(Kathryn Bradley
and Edith Cooper)
Amy Lowell
Muriel Rukeyser
May Swenson
Elizabeth Bishop
May Sarton
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Under the able
direction of poet/novelist Trish Shields,
these pages of Just About Write will introduce Lesbian
poets from
the past, a little
about their herstories, and a sampling of their works.
These women were pioneers, and
they left a remarkable legacy for
us all. We urge you
to take the time to learn something about them
and their lasting
impressions of life, love, and the world around us.
Renee Vivien
'Muse of the Violets'
1877-1909
Pauline Mary Tarn was born in Paddington, England, in 1877. Both she and her sister attended boarding school in Paris. When their father died in 1886, Pauline was nine years of age. Having lived in France for most of her young life, she was not pleased when her mother moved the family back to England. It was during this unsettling time that Mrs. Tarn tried to gain hold over the money her husband left to his oldest daughter, Pauline. Her efforts to have Pauline certified insane were foiled when the magistrates made her a ward of the court. She stayed in England until the age of 21 and then returned to the only place she considered home - Paris.
| One can surmise that there were two main events in Renee's life that helped create the poet she was to become - embracing her sexuality as a lesbian in Paris in '98 and her introduction to Natalie Clifford Barney the following year. At that time, Clifford Barney was an American heiress already living actively as a lesbian in Paris. Renee describes her instant attraction to Clifford Barney in her novel, Une Femme M'apparut (A Woman Appeared to Me, 1904), saying, "I would evoke over and over again the faraway hour when I saw her for the first time, and the shudder which ran down my spine when my eyes met her eyes of mortal steel. ...I had a dim premonition that this woman would determine the pattern of my destiny, and that her face was the fearful face of my Future." |
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Renee Vivien (left)
and Natalie Clifford Barney |
While her poetry was influenced by Keats, Swinburne, Baudlaire and Hellenic culture, it is fair to say that her inspiration was sparked by her childhood friend, Violet Shilleto and the Greek poetess, Sappho. It was Violet who introduced Renee to Natalie Clifford Barney.
Renee and Clifford Barney studied Greek at Bryn Mawr and then in Paris under the tutelage of Professor Charles-Brun, a classic scholar. Renee's successful imitation of Sappho's passionate style gained the attention of publisher Alphonse Lemerre, who published two volumes of her poetry in 1901 and 1902 under the pseudonym, Rene or R. Vivien. Her reputation as a symbolist poet was already forming when she suddenly feminized her name to Renee.
When Violet died in 1901, Renee was devastated. The colours violet and purple appear dominantly throughout her poetry. It was this same year when the relationship between Renee and Clifford Barney soured, due mainly to Clifford Barney's constant infidelities. Heartbroken but not destroyed, Renee took up with Baroness de Zuylen de Nyevelt. Their relationship continued for four years when Renee was wooed again by Clifford Barney, who had taken up writing sonnets to win the poet back. It was easy for Renee to rekindle her affair with Clifford Barney and the two left for the Isle of Lesbos. Their on-again-off-again relationship continued for most of Renee's life.
The tumultuous lifestyle she led drove Renee to attempt suicide at least twice during her lifetime. However, through it all she remained a very prolific author and poet, using the many adventures of her life as fodder for her writing. In fact, she re-wrote quite a bit of her past relationships with women, casting herself as victim. After bouts of sexual indulgence, drugs and anorexia, Renee died from pneumonia in 1909.
During her lifetime, she published fourteen books of poetry, including At the Hour of Joined Hands, Wakes and Extinguished Torches, two novels and three books of short stories. One of her short stories, the fairy tale of Prince Charming, was given an interesting twist - after a lavish wedding, the bride's family discover the groom is the prince's sister in disguise. Renee is credited with bringing Sappho's sexuality out of the shadows. She spent a great deal of time translating the known works of Sappho into French, illuminating the Greek poetess' lesboerotic passions. It is through Renee's works that Sappho has attained the level of muse, goddess of lesbian passion and love.
Renee Vivien was a woman ahead of her times. She wrote stories and poetry on strong-willed heroic women facing seemingly insurmountable problems in a time when women were encouraged to embrace the domesticity of a drab housewife. And although Renee was a very prolific writer, it is her relationship with Natalie Clifford Barney that interests readers the most. It is reported that the American heiress was still trying to win her back, arriving only hours after the British poet died, unhappy and alone.
Roses Rising
My brunette with the golden eyes, your ivory body, your amber
Has left bright reflections in the room
Above the garden.
The clear midnight sky, under my closed lids,
Still shines....I am drunk from so many roses
Redder than wine.
Leaving their garden, the roses have followed me....
I drink their brief breath, I breathe their life.
All of them are here.
It's a miracle....The stars have risen,
Hastily, across the wide windows
Where the melted gold pours.
Now, among the roses and the stars,
You, here in my room, loosening your robe,
And your nakedness glistens
Your unspeakable gaze rests on my eyes....
Without stars and without flowers, I dream the impossible
In the cold night.
Undine
Your laughter is light, your caress deep,
Your cold kisses love the harm they do;
Your eyes--blue lotus waves
And the water lilies are less pure than your face.
You flee, a fluid parting,
Your hair falls in gentle tangles;
Your voice--a treacherous tide;
Your arms--supple reeds.
Long river reeds, their embrace
Enlaces, chokes, strangles savagely,
Deep in the waves, an agony
Extinguished in a night drift.
Your Strange Hair
Your strange hair, cold light,
Has pale glows and blond dullness;
Your gaze has the blue of ether and waves;
Your gown has the chill of the breeze and the woods.
I burn the whiteness of your fingers with kisses.
The night air spreads the dust from many worlds.
Still I don't know anymore, in the heart of those deep nights,
How to see you with the passion of yesterday.
The moon grazed you with a slanted glow...
It was terrible, like prophetic lightning
Revealing the hideous below your beauty.
I saw--as one sees a flower fade--
On your mouth, like summer auroras,
The withered smile of an old whore.
Prolong the Night
Prolong the night, Goddess who sets us aflame!
Hold back from us the golden-sandalled dawn!
Already on the sea the first faint gleam
Of day is coming on.
Sleeping under your veils, protect us yet,
Having forgotten the cruelty day may give!
The wine of darkness, wine of the stars let
Overwhelm us with love!
Since no one knows what dawn will come,
Bearing the dismal future with its sorrows
In its hands, we tremble at full day, our dream
Fears all tomorrows.
Oh! keeping our hands on our still-closed eyes,
Let us vainly recall the joys that take flight!
Goddess who delights in the ruin of the rose,
Prolong the night!
The Touch
The trees have kept some lingering sun in their branches,
Veiled like a woman, evoking another time,
The twilight passes, weeping. My fingers climb,
Trembling, provocative, the line of your haunches.
My ingenious fingers wait when they have found
The petal flesh beneath the robe they part.
How curious, complex, the touch, this subtle art--
As the dream of fragrance, the miracle of sound.
I follow slowly the graceful contours of your hips,
The curves of your shoulders, your neck, your upappeased breasts.
In your white voluptuousness my desire rests,
Swooning, refusing itself the kisses of your lips.
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Research Links
http://www.sappho.com/poetry/r_vivien.html
http://users.pandora.be/gaston.d.haese/vivienen.html
http://www.glbtq.com/literature/vivien_r.html
http://andrejkoymasky.com/liv/fam/biov1/vivi2.html
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