Flowers For Socrates

by NONA BLYTH CLOUD

I normally try to abstain from vulgar language in my writing, but profiling Carolyn Kizer (1925-2014), it’s hard to avoid the word “Bitch” since that is the title of one of her most famous poems.

“Women writers are the custodians of the world’s best-kept secret. Merely the private lives of one half of humanity.” (from Pro Femina)

Much of Carolyn Kizer’s work is about the inner workings of women’s minds. She brilliantly confronted the 1950s constricted role of daughter-wife-mother, revealing the woman hidden by the macquillage.

There’s a lot of pain and anger buried beneath smiles and polite small talk. Many women cringe when reminded how desperately their younger selves sought approval. Especially those of us who grew up in the 50s and early 60s, when we were force-fed a steady diet of “let him win” and “boys like pretty girls, not smart ones.”

BITCH

Now, when he and I meet, after all these years,
I say to the bitch inside me, don’t start growling.
He isn’t a trespasser anymore,
Just an old acquaintance tipping his hat.
My voice says, “Nice to see you,”
As the bitch starts to bark hysterically.
He isn’t an enemy now,
Where are your manners, I say, as I say,
“How are the children? They must be growing up.”
At a kind word from him, a look like the old days,
The bitch changes her tone; she begins to whimper.
She wants to snuggle up to him, to cringe.
Down, girl! Keep your distance
Or I’ll give you a taste of the choke-chain.
“Fine, I’m just fine,” I tell him.
She slobbers and grovels.
After all, I am her mistress. She is basically loyal.
It’s just that she remembers how she came running
Each evening, when she heard his step;
How she lay at his feet and looked up adoringly
Though he was absorbed in his paper;
Or, bored with her devotion, ordered her to the kitchen
Until he was ready to play.
But the small careless kindnesses
When he’d had a good day, or a couple of drinks,
Come back to her now, seem more important
Than the casual cruelties, the ultimate dismissal.
“It’s nice to know you are doing so well,” I say.
He couldn’t have taken you with him;
You were too demonstrative, too clumsy,
Not like the well-groomed pets of his new friends.
“Give my regards to your wife,” I say. You gag
As I drag you off by the scruff,
Saying, “Goodbye! Goodbye! Nice to have seen you again.”

REUNION

For more than thirty years we hadn’t met.
I remembered the bright query of your face,
That single-minded look,intense and stern,
Yet most important -how could I forget?-
Was what your taught me inadvertantly
(tutored by books and parents, even more
By my own awe at what was yet to learn):
The finest intellect can be a bore.

At this, perhaps our final interview,
Still luminous with your passion to instruct,
You speak to that recalcitrant pupil who
Inhaled the chalk-dust of your rhetoric.
I nod, I sip my wine, I praise your view,
Grateful, my dear, that I escaped from you.

Here, she gives us a litany of “Blame the Victim” through the centuries.

FEARFUL WOMEN

Arms and the girl I sing – O rare
arms that are braceleted and white and bare

arms that were lovely Helen’s, in whose name
Greek slaughtered Trojan. Helen was to blame.

Scape-nanny call her; wars for turf
and profit don’t sound glamorous enough.

Mythologize your women! None escape.
Europe was named from an act of bestial rape:

Eponymous girl on bull-back, he intent
on scattering sperm across a continent.

Old Zeus refused to take the rap.
It’s not his name in big print on the map.

But let’s go back to the beginning
when sinners didn’t know that they were sinning.

He, one rib short: she lived to rue it
when Adam said to God, “She made me do it.”

Eve learned that learning was a dangerous thing
for her: no end of trouble would it bring.

An educated woman is a danger.
Lock up your mate! Keep a submissive stranger

like Darby’s Joan, content with church and Kinder,
not like that sainted Joan, burnt to a cinder.

Whether we wield a scepter or a mop
It’s clear you fear that we may get on top.

And if we do -I say it without animus-
It’s not from you we learned to be magnaminous. 

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