Handmade Manuscripts ~

Poet

The heart pours forth words,
When itself begs release.
'Tis good to express
Its needs;
But too incredible for words,
That clamouring need
Concedes
To quiet words.
Ah! There is probably a word
For that, too.

______© Nellieanna H. Hay

summer, 1971

Many of you know something of my poetry-writing background. It started very young, but mostly was never seen by anyone but me, though one poem written at about 16 was published in a college publication for a writer's club to which I belonged. It's been lost to posterity, but its title was "Soliloquy" and it was considered pretty good.

Of course, as was customary then, I wrote for English classes and many of the other classes featured essay-type questions on their tests.

Letter-writing was also a major part of my life, especially when I was away from home at school. I'm amazed to discover an entire file box full of letters I wrote home!

I can't remember not writing, in fact, and I started school very young, back when penmanship was mandatory and having something to say was also valued. So writing has been an intrinsic part of who I am. I always loved it and sometimes enjoyed exchanging poems with favorite friends and schoolmates who also loved to write. I run across some of theirs in things my parents also saved. I've often wondered where those kids' lives led them.

My own odyssey has been rather unusual, I suppose, and it's very much intertwined with my writing essence.

The reason my earliest poetry didn't survive was that my first husband saw fit to destroy it all, along with other of my keepsakes I had brought with me to our marriage and home. For a time, these things had helped define me to myself in a hostile environment. But he realized that and much preferred that I not know and accept myself that well, for reasons of his own. It wasn't nice.

When those ritual burnings of my most precious personal things occurred, it was not a pretty scene - out behind the farm house where the items were chucked into a big metal barrel and lit, often when the sky was dark and menacing. I was required to witness it as though I concurred that it was the right thing to do. My compliance was the objective, so it was simplest for me and my children to maintain the impression it was intact. My choices were limited. I didn't drive and though I was a strong walker, the road leading up the rugged steep hill to this farmland atop it was not a place for a lone woman to venture. So my world was as isolated as my captor planned it to be, EXCEPT for my inner resources!

Of course, I had hopes that the nightmare would stop, but to stop it was too costly, of that I was sure. There were many factors involved, and there was never any question but that I would lose my MOST precious children if I defied him. I confess that my hero was "The Birdman of Alcatraz"! I took courage from his example.

I know I was unwise in making the choice in the first place. Perhaps there might still have been a chance to escape, but the plan was so foolproof that every avenue for that was blocked with dire consequences. Now that it's well behind me, though, I realize that it was probably the impetus for my becoming all of myself. Had things coasted along, I'd just as likely have become a shallow socialite imprisoned by that even more confining lifestyle.

So, within the parameters in which I existed, at least I found I could retain and/or recapture and develop all of "me" - for me - by ongoing writing which I could protect, knowing the prevailing mood; and this, I did prolifically. At first, those writings, too, were destroyed, till I learned to not expose them to the wrath. This, if known, would have been deemed almost criminally dishonest to keep them private. It was vital for me, though. They were literally a codified journal or diary of my feelings and thoughts about life within and beyond my predicament, and, as such, they were my closest confidante and friend - my truest self survived in their brief words, and they expressed what was truest for me. The other parts of this life were endured and made most of, for a reason I considered greater than myself. I took full responsibility for being in the predicament but the price of escape could not justify implementing it. It was both the poetry and this acceptance of my own responsibility which was to save me when it became a critical mass.

Writing was but one of my creative outlets, by the way, and ranged from design and painting, music, profuse and varied reading, cooking, - many things, so that those eighteen years were not as dismal as it surely sounds, except that it was a form of attempted imprisonment and destruction of myself, and that was the fact of it. But within that, I was able to emerge like a butterfly from a cocoon when the whole thing collapsed around me.

The poetry was my clearest connection to freedom. It's rather hard to put into fathomable words which really describe it, but these pretty well do describe it. I suppose I come off sounding like a woose, but that is far from the facts. I was not a victim, though I was being victimized by someone with a deliberate agenda.

When I've read of others' experiences with writing for relief and fulfillment in horrid situations, though I see some parallels, they are definitely not exactly like this was. So I've wished to be able to attempt to clarify some of the differences and hope that this hub might help do so, for what it may be worth. Nothing is hanging in the balance. It's simply part of "my story".

It was many decades ago, and I've blossomed from the bud which was always intact from birth to beyond then, and though the losses were severe, in spite of my dedication to avoiding them, I have the poetry as a kind of gem mined from deep within that pit. Had my wisdom been equal to my dedication, who knows what the outcome may have been. The point is, though - that wasn't the way it played out. And here I am, still intact and 'going strong'! Perhaps my odyssey will inspire or bring hope to others.

So my poems poured forth and were mostly brief and hand-written, as illustrated in this hub, those many, many of them from all during "then" till this very present day. I still prefer to write in long-hand and transcribe to the printed page. But until Hubpages, I'd really seen few of my poems even in typewriter type. I didn't much like the appearance of them in type, in fact. The arrangement on the page in my own hand was intrinsic to them, as well as the sequences of them, I felt. It seemed to me that just picking one of them was, well, -insufficient. Of course, that was because I needed the sequences for my own "full picture" of Nellieanna, so vitally needed then. I wasn't concerned much how others would evaluate them, in the unlikely event they ever saw them.

In fact, I seldom shared the poetry, but when I did, I simply selected and copied one or more to give someone as a gift, either in lovely "blank books" or in blank greeting cards, or occasionally - a card I painted myself. This was infrequent.

I visualized that posthumously, perhaps the poetry would be discovered and - who knew - perhaps, like Emily Dickinson's; it might even be published. I just didn't visualize myself ever doing so.

When I joined Hubpages about 15 months ago, I honestly had no intention of publishing any of it here! In fact, I wasn't sure I'd 'publish' anything! But I became more comfortable here and my first hubs were prose, written for Hubpages. Occasionally I threw in a poem as an illustration. In that process, I realized how much I needed to transcribe my handwritten poems to my computer, where they could be indexed by title or first line and so much more accessible! Many times, I've searched through seven thick notebooks of the handwritten poems, looking for the exact wording of one I wanted to think about or share!

So - as I began to type them up for my computer files and folders, I realized I actually COULD share some here as hubs! I had no idea if or how they'd be received. I've experienced good responses when I've shared a few before - but I wrote for my own reasons and not to please an audience! So I've been very gratified that my stuff has been well received here!

According to my "Poetry-Album" folder on my computer, I've added 865 poems to that file, and as I look at the un-transcribed books and scraps of paper still to be done, that number is barely a dent in them. But do not worry! I won't impose them all on you here! :-)

Thank you for caring and reading this presentation. I thought it might illustrate my poetic history better than merely explaining it, for those of you who have expressed interest!

Hugs ~

Most of the poems I've scanned to share here in this hub were written 'after the fact' of that direst situation, but were penned while I was still recovering myself, but many I've shared over the past 15 months were written from in the midst of it, and some have been recent.

These I've scanned were simply more accessible without having to disassemble the notebooks, but they illustrate my process of writing which has prevailed. Besides, who I am and how I write really hasn't changed much, though the challenges and impetus to express it has progressed with life's progression. I can't attempt to define the background of each poem. They are simply here to behold and to be responded to by you, the readers, as you see fit. I've had them to myself all along! I don't need them interpreted for my own benefit!

Be ready -

Listening for signs

Not seen by eyes

Nor heard by ears.

Be still - and know.

Be moving and yet knowing.

It matters not.

If you can know,

You will.

______© Nellieanna H. Hay

Birdsong

Long silent,

Rises flying in a dream,

Becomes

Reality.

Orchestra of one

Affirms,

Joining fully

In the tune

And best of all,

The lonely flute

Comes out of hiding.-

______© Nellieanna H. Hay

Signs and symbols,

Airborne,

From under liturgies

Held too long

Against the wind.

Be reborn

And be better

Than before.-

______© Nellieanna H. Hay

Mansions,

Palaces,

I remember them ~

Those "Ivory Palaces" -

And know

They do exist.

The other plane

Has homes enough

For all to live

As royalty.

______© Nellieanna H. Hay

Friggin' -

Fraggin' -

What?

Who cares?

Willow -

Wallow -

Why?

Who dares?

______© Nellieanna H. Hay

1-14-87

The ungifted

Look upon the fruits

The gifted make

As if a little cheese

To sample with a biscuit

And a glass of wine.

Yet, of these,

Still they like

The peanuts more.-

______© Nellieanna H. Hay

8-30-86