The Rag-Picker's Guide to Poetry: Poems, Poets, Process

Needlework Poems

163 Mary Leader Needlework Poems gIRlS’ NAMeS 164 The RAg-PIckeR’S guIde To PoeTRy flAMeSTITch ThRoW (To kNIT oR cRocheT) Needlework Poems 165 from veIlléeS “All brought their distaffs, flax, spindles, standards, happles, and all the agoubilles useful in their art.” —Les Evangiles des quenouilles [Gospels of the distaffs] Anonymous, fifteenth century My mother couldn’t sew a lick I qua daughter announced in a poem long after that mother Was dead and buried in Highland Cemetery, Pawnee, Oklahoma. Couldn’t sew a lick. But that was a boast to her. “I can’t even sew on a button,” she’d say at family gatherings Right in front of the females stitching away: her mother-in-law, Several nieces, her daughter, her sisters-in-law. . . . Not her mother, although even Granny, no button-sewer-onner, Was reputed to have tried knitting for the troops during WW II. But (great-) Aunt Sara, childless, did a lot of needle-point in her day And petit-point, and cross-stitch. Gatherings, holidays, the wives And future wives in the living room with our distaffs, flax, spindles, Standards, happles, and all the agoubilles useful in our art While the men and boys watched football on television In the den (somehow they knew exactly when to whoop and Exactly when to groan, for they did both in unison). She’d light another cigarette, repeat,“I can’t even sew on A button” (deep drag of smoke, inhaled, held, exhaled beautifully) “I don’t see how y’all can make all those little bitty stitches!” Said in seeming admiration. My mother disdained needlework, 166 The RAg-PIckeR’S guIde To PoeTRy And for some very good reasons. It was the 1950s. What we girls, Ladies, and women did with our distaffs flax spindles standards Happles or agoubilles was not called“our art.” Not remotely. It was The 1960s, rural town. No“fabric arts” so-called. Needlework Was no more“creative” than doing the dishes, and believe me, Doing the dishes was not marveled at, whether mother Washed and big sister dried or big sister washed and little sister Dried or the housewife by herself. Needlework was ipso facto Women’s work; at best,“her hobby.”And my mother’s hobby was Poetry. I’m typing up her poems. The document is now at p. 351. It is due to her poem“Remains,” about Aunt Sara, that I know That when my mother’s mother’s mother made crab-apple jelly, She“would place a geranium leaf / at the bottom of each glass / for the faint, exotic flavor that it gave.” Bargain hunters out there, You can now receive“Remains” in its entirety along with twenty Other decent poems by logging on to and ordering: Author: Katherine H. Privett Title: The Dreams of Exiles Publisher: Holmgangers Press Date: 1981 Our cost: $3 It was Katharine with an a- - - - - - - - - - - - -Not Katherine with an e, But what do Messrs. Barnes and Noble care? Look, if you want the chapbook, send me a SASE and I’ll mail it to you. You can read“Watching My Daughter Sew” while sipping latte. You can check out the back cover, see what my mother looked like. She is wearing a beautiful heavy sterling silver medal. Or was Needlework Poems 167 When our neighbor Ruby Lusk took the picture. You can’t tell from the blurry photo but the medal bore The Sacred Heart on one side and the Blessed Virgin on the other. My friend Arlene’s mother was killed in a car-wreck when Arlene Was six years old. Arlene—superb lawyer, by the way—remembers An argument about whether her mother would be Buried in her pearls“. . . cultured, of course, but they were good Cultured pearls, and worth quite a bit.” Mimmy (Norwegian maternal grandmother in Saint Paul) Felt that her daughter would want to be buried in her pearls. Aunt Eleanor said“That’s stupid. That’s just stupid.” But Mimmy absolutely insisted, and Julie was wearing her pearls. And Mimmy said, she always felt beautiful in those pearls. I always Say“Arlene, you should write a short story, called‘Julie’s Pearls.’” Especially I enjoy using the scarcity of space to come up with abbreviations and condensations, and likewise, I enjoy clear space, free to be left clear, in some places, and...