| Poetry Week post 3- William Sharp/Fiona Macleod, The Tryst of Queen Hynde |
[Apr. 19th, 2008|04:41 pm] |
This poem is by a minor late Victorian author, William Sharp, whose own poems didn't sell very well. He created a female pseudonym, Fiona Macleod, whom he successfully maintained for over ten years, whose poems were very different (drawing on Celtic myth and a Celtic "atmosphere"), and who sold very well. Other than his wife and a female cousin whom he asked to pose as Macleod a few times, not many people knew Sharp's secret; "Fiona" was a recluse in Scotland and wrote long letters to other authors, including W. B. Yeats. Sharp seems to have regarded her as a separate personality, and the strain of keeping it up may have been one reason he died young.
I like this poem because it's very sharp, uses simple words to make a great impact, and tells a legend about an adulterous queen that's, well, pretty damn different from the usual.
THE TRYST OF QUEEN HYNDE
Queen Hynde was in the rowan-wood
with scarlet fruit aflame,
Her face was as the berries were, one sun-
hot wave of shame.
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