I was thinking about Art Linkletter (1912-2010), Canadian-born (didn't know that) American humorist, entertainer, best known in my memory for his show about kids who - "say the darndest things." I member reading somewhere that after he had retired from the public eye (not too far)someone recognized him and said , "Didn't you used to be Art Linkletter?" There's a line much like that that I used in a play - maybe I twirled it around - anyway, I have an old woman being interviewed and the interviewer says "Who did you used to be?" Wait for it. It will happen to you, too. All it takes is time.

You must have noticed all the surveys we are being subjected to now online. We're a captive audience, and everyone likes quizzes, up to a point. I've stopped answering because I get so far into the Q and A and then it stops and says I don't qualify because I have told them how old I am. Unpredictable. (Me) I don't mind.

The question is, who am I now?

For my Masters (in English) degree I majored in 20th century poetry with my thesis about W.H.Auden. I made this choice for several reasons:

1) I had just been engaged to my future husband - on the night of the day I had received my application for Columbia University to work on my Masters degree. I was 19 years old, a bit young, my parents (father) thought, to get married ("to throw myself under the wheels of happiness" - a line from Christopher Fry's The Lady's Not for Burning - don't make me look up the dates now, this is not totally relevant). I compromised - it didn't feel like compromise. My father reminded me I had always (?) intended to get m M.A. and I should stick to that plan. A postgraduate degree would be good insurance, he said. How right he was! Just about the only insurance I had, as it turned out. So then it was a question of where to focus in my studies.

2) I chose 20th century poetry because I didn't read poetry as easily as I read prose. I wanted to train myself to read poetry the way I read a mystery thriller.

3) I wanted to work with the best mind available to me at the university: Chester Duncan (1913-2002: wrtier, broadcaster, university professor, pianist and composer). He was particularly knowledgeable about W.H.Auden and had composed music for many of his poems, still doing it when I signed on.

4) I didn't want to go away. If I had left Bill then it was likely that we wouldn't have been married. After a year apart at that tender age we would have been strangers.

So I stayed home and we had a long engagement. I convicted with my M.A. in May of the following year and I married 17 days after that. Thank goodness. We had been married 20 years when he suddenly died.

This is about sipping poetry. I still read poetry and I still find poets who get inside me, and stay there, That's a long preamble to introduce Eleanor Ross Taylor (1920-2011) whom I first encountered in The New Yorker. Her second book of poetry, Welcome Eumenides (1972), its title taken from a diary note of Florence Nightingale, has a long poem written int he first person as if by Nightingale, very moving. I didn't find the book until after Bill had died and I was still raw when I read it, so my underlines are selfish and personal. Good poetry, though.I won't dwell too long as i have taken too long now. I'll just take a few lines from a poem called "Sirens".

The ambulance

Arriving for one

I never expected

To leave.

-------------------------

Siamese partner,

If your heart fail

Shall I not panic?