RPO -- Rosemarie Rowley : Beauty's Helicon

Rosemarie Rowley (1942-)

Beauty's Helicon

1I've had practice with sleeping with those who do not please me,

2I've had oceans of despair in my cup of pain,

3I do not try to please who do not please me,

4They cause storms, and trigger fissures in the brain,

5So when I know my true love by his hand,

6I'll set in stone my long list of his beauty,

7Release into the air the demons of that band

8Who say the ugly are forgetful of their duty,

9To live a life of honour, but not lust,

10To be the clerk of passion, and its ways,

11To write the bibliographies in dust,

12To caption beauty in the prison of their days,

13As my true love and I practice the ration

14Of beauty, that makes fidelity a passion.

Notes

1] "This was written as a reaction [to] the cult of the ugly duckling—brought on by constant comparisons from the media—as we all know, comparisons are odious, everyone is beautiful in their own way, and if you are not asked up to dance it is because you are not smiling.
I have always loved the story of the Ugly Duckling because it also works on the spiritual level as a story of rebirth and transformation, which really is what beauty is about, anyway." (poet's note)

Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Copyright © Rosemarie Rowley 2007. Not to be republished without permission of the poet.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.

Original text: Rosemarie Rowley, In Memory of Her (Dublin: Rowan Tree Press, 2004): 64.
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: 2007
Recent editing: 1:2007/3/20

Form: sonnet
Rhyme: ababcdcdefefgg

Other poems by Rosemarie Rowley