In Search of Poetry at Home

Part I

I'd gone to the bookstore with marketing in mind. Several times a month, I buy different magazines to study before I send submissions to them. As I paid the salesperson in the book store, I noticed a brochure announcing a reading by Dr. Paula Feldman. Dr. Feldman's book, A Century of Sonnets, had already caught my eye, and I had made plans to purchase it in the near future.

Meeting the woman who edited such a remarkable book was an intriguing possibility, however, and I made plans to go to her reading scheduled a few days later. As luck would have it, there was a major book festival going on in our city, and Dr. Feldman had also appeared at that widely publicized event. The neighborhood book store didn't draw as large a crowd.

As a result, there were a few of us sequestered in a cozy nook between bookshelves, and we had Dr. Feldman all to ourselves. Of course, I had to have the Sonnets. No poet worth her salt could resist. Then temptation beckoned once more, for the author also had on display British Women Poets of the Romantic Era. Of course, I left that bookstore with twenty pounds of books in my bag.

The author, who teaches at the University of South Carolina, and holds the C. Wallace Martin Chair in English, read and entertained us for a couple hours. Of special delight was, "A Poem, on the Supposition of the Book Having Been Published and Read," by Elizabeth Hands(1789). Ms. Hands had at one time been a servant, but her poem is as crafted and delicate as that of a classical scholar, so she had access to an education at some point. Her narrative brings together a dinner group of upper crust society folk, and the poem is a study in both character and voice. Dr. Feldman's delivery of the poem was equally delightful, because of both her enthusiasm and a gift for drama.

Dr. Feldman told me the British Women Poets book was a "labor of love," but it is also a significant addition to scholarship. We think primarily of men when someone mentions the Romantic Era. In reality, a number of women were widely read during that time.

"In fact," Dr. Feldman writes of Felicia Hemans, "Hemans was one of the bestselling authors of the nineteenth century..." A poem by Lady Bryon came as a complete surprise to me, and the biographies that accompany each writer's works are guaranteed to inform and entertain.

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