When it comes to
writing, the idea is to keep a diary. Why, you ask? Consider what the British
poet Peter Scupham found in what the London Review of Books (Aug. 27) called “a
carrier bag of diary entries and other bits and bobs.” The diary writer’s name:
Avies Platt; she died in 1976. In the diary she writes about a memorable
evening in 1937 when she attended a lecture of the Sex Education Society in
London.
Here’s some of what
she wrote in that diary:
“Two rows back
stood the most striking-looking man I had ever seen: tall, somewhat gaunt,
aristocratic, very dignified: a strong, yet sensitive face, crowned by untidy locks
of white hair: horn-rimmed glasses, through which shone strange, otherworldly
eyes. He wore evening dress, with a soft shirt. He leaned slightly forward,
resting both hands on the chair in front of him, and on the little finger of
his left hand was a large, exotic-looking ring.”
Wonderful. (Of
course, my thought is that how special it is to be a woman observer. My wife,
MM, is similarly gifted. As a man, I always feel uncomfortable staring at a person
for as long as Avies must have stared to get this glorious description … )
Who was the man?
None other than the poet, W.B. Yeats (1865-1939). Of course, Platt and Yeats
would spend the evening together in conversation: Here’s a second gem, from
Yeats himself:
“If you would
write, you must get away, by yourself, into another world and write according
to the vision you see there. You must write what you believe and not mind what
people say. It is the only way. You know, when I come down to breakfast in the
morning after writing all night, it is coming back into another world. It is as
though I am not the same man, yet I am.”
Here’s a twist.
Avies Platt is no longer with us. But a thoughtful poet with a great
ear for a story wonderfully told has restored to us a memoir so that this
amazing encounter between perfect strangers lives on, seventy-eight years after
that singular evening in London, England.
Read on at http://bit.ly/1hlMofF
Next: Running for Your Life: Marseilles
Mood
