[stylist] Exhibit A

[John Lee Clark]

This is Exhibit A of the kind of work I do NOT want in.  Blind people have
written yards and yards of this stuff over the centuries.  Only a small,
small few wrote anything of lasting value that was thoroughly mainstream in
content.  Milton was one, but since then nobody has really gained wide
respect in the general poetry community, as far as I know.  But should there
be truly great work, it could get in.  For example in my Deaf anthology,
there were two poets who had some truly remarkable poems nothing directly to
do with their deafness.  But even so, one was about being open about sex and
not buttoned up about it--this was a Deaf woman who wrote a poem describing
the female orgasm . . . written in the middle of the nineteenth century, and
scholars believe it is the first poem to be so graphic by a woman in
America.  The poem didn't say anything about deafness, yet it did not
include sounds, so it was honest, and there's the possibility that the poet
was able to be so open because she was Deaf and not so bound by society's
constraints.  That's just one example.  So it needn't be blind, but at least
it needs to be real and honest.

Anyway, here's a perfect example of what I won't choose.

A JUNE MORNING.

    Early one morn in leafy June,
    When brooks and birds were all in tune,
    A maiden left her quiet home
    In meadows and in fields to roam.
    She wandered on, in cheerful mood,
    Through verdant fields and leafy wood.
    At length she paused to rest awhile
    Upon a little rustic stile.
    She made a pretty picture there,
    With her bright, curling, golden hair,
    And dress of white, and eyes of blue,
    And ribbons of the self-same hue.
    And while she sat absorbed in thought,
    A form approached. She heeded not
    Until a hand was gently laid
    Upon the shoulders of the maid.
    Then, looking up in sweet surprise,
    She saw a pair of jet-black eyes,
    A perfect form of manly grace,
    A handsome, open, honest face.
    Then said the maid, in voice so clear:
    "How did you know that I was here?"
    Said he: "I sought you at your home,
    They told me you had hither come,
    And so, I came, this bright June day,
    To say what I've so longed to say.
    When first we met in by-gone days,
    You charmed me with your winning ways.
    Since then the time has quickly flown,
    Each day to me you've dearer grown,
    And you can brighten all my life
    If you will but become my wife."
    She raised her eyes unto his own,
    And in their depths a new light shone,
    While in a voice so soft and low
    She said: "I _will_; it shall be so."
    And then they homeward took their way,
    While birds were singing sweet and gay,
    Now oft they bless that day in June
    When brooks and birds were all atune.



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