Friday, May 8, 2009

Betsy Magill, poet and nurse, has died

Betsy died Wednesday of COPD. She was a wonderful poet, with a delicate sense of the power and rightness of words. Last year, she published a chapbook of her best poems.

Here is one of them that expresses how I feel:

LACE

How cruel lace looks
on loneliness
white against stark black
when the poverty of grief is insulted
with abundance
just give me
one hand
one shell
one open flower
the intimacy of rain
and
one more
hour


Despite all I can do, I cannot get this poem to format as she has it, for she does not use even lines, but I hope you will get some idea of her work from it.

7 comments:

  1. I think if you put the word center in between < and > it would center each line and then close it with a slash between < and >. Not sure if you have to do for each line as long as you clicked on to the next line each time.

    That is a truly beautiful poem -- I do not know of this poet. It is the kind of poem I like to write because it is so vivid a picture it paints in your mind. I will have to look her up on Google. Thanks!

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  2. oops! I forgot the word center after the slash in closing. . .

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  3. PERBS, thanks for the information, but Betsy spaced her poems to match the way she wanted them read, so they are not centered or justified.

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  4. OIC -- I thought that is what you wanted to do. Sorry!

    Making note to myself to look this author/poet up asap. . .

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  5. I searched on Google and can't find a thing about her poetry book or otherwise. Will have to look at library I guess. :o(

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  6. what a lovely poem...sorry to hear of her passing.

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  7. Do you know where a copy of her book could be obtained?

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About Me

Jacksonville, N.C., United States
Retired teacher, motorcyclist, member of the Patriot Guard Riders, the Christian Motorcyclists Association, and the Moto Guzzi National Owners Club.