If you knew her at all, you are no doubt grateful. Those meeting her here for the first time may soon be also. Even those who knew her well will likely find surprises in what’s found, as we have been, however scattered, sporadically uploaded & reflected on. The main organization of her work is happening off-line, where some pieces have all the more impact in context, as parts of larger movements–psycho-emotional, musical, poetic…. The more pieces get typed, the more gaps fill, intentions clarify.
More complete groups & sequences may be added going forward. Otherwise, year of the hare or not, feel free to hop about these less organized pages for the assorted gifts to be found–simple, diverse, individually packed, each charged with Virginia’s breath, spirit, feeling & perspective….
As host, guide, editor, website flunky, & link in the transmission from her to you, Yours Crudely confronts a creative dilemma the horns of which are “stay out of the way, let the work sing for itself” & “alert the world, the individual visitor-reader to the range, depth & impact of her legacy.” This last may be most useful for those just learning of her ground-breaking work, fellow travelers on trails of life & art for whom a librarian may point in helpful directions–mainly to the work at hand.
The great poet, philosopher & sage Aurobindo Ghosh wrote, “And belief shall not be until the work is done.” For some, perhaps, the work is never done, only passed along when life is. In Virginia’s case, she went on doing her part of it as she lived it–fully engaged in the particulars of trail & companions, exploring the geographies of inner experience…feelingly, life & art one, as were her love of nature & culture, children & elders, legacy & offering. She never called herself poet, or artist, or musician, at least in a professional sense, as someone with a career, and resumé in the field. Her professional field was education of the whole person, mostly the young–for life in all its aspects. Poetry, art, music were as much part of a fully lived life as other creatures, community, & the healthy environment.
Her professional life, organically grown from her core, was dedicated to the young of all ages, along with the environment. Individual people, community & our place in living nature weren’t just ideas to her, nor were the arts something reserved for professionals or primarily defined by markets. (Just look at van Gogh.) At some early point, poetry, like dance, simply became part of her life, as did the natural sciences, the various ways of exploring who, what & where we are at multiple scales & in various contexts–the roots of which remain in experience.
Her approach to poetry was quite distinct, neither that of a professional writer, nor would-be teacher, the works generally not meant to guide or inform, but to explore, express, experience more completely & learn–as well as to share. A significant percentage of her poems were written to particular people, for example–each in response to specific circumstances, sharing the feelings embodied in recent experience. In most such cases, it would be pointless to ask whether they’re poems first or communication first, each all the more one for being the other. Like a well-crafted little clay pot or sweater knitted stitch by stitch to keep a loved one warm, the care taken in each poem’s creation reflected & embodied her deeper connection with friends, colleagues, far-flung family, offspring & Yours Crudely, her partner.
Another significant percentage of her poems were written entirely for & to herself–a moving, growing, attentive, feeling, exploring entity trying to figure anything (& sometimes everything) important out.. word by word, movement by movement. These include both a variety of what might be called musical meditations, e.g., her response to a Sibelius symphony on early morning radio, & attempts to understand what was happening in, with & to her mind, brain & body as they changed in response to age & a neurological condition…. She had always paid attention to how mind, brain & body interacted–as a hiker, biker, dancer, diver, lover…friend, mother & teacher. New visual phenomena, less perfect muscular coordination & the tribulations of afflicted friends prompted explorations of this new territory.
No categories are only what they first seem, however, so poems written purely for (to &/or on) the poet’s own inquiring self may turn into communications meant to help friends struggling to cope with their own mind-body-brain dysfunctions. Others cross the imaginary self boundary entirely by speaking to a future self at once the original self in a new state &/or an intimate new friend trusted with the open mind & heart.
Still other poems are games & dances, celebrations & elegies, each defying the more usual poetic categories in its own way. The one characteristic shared across all the poetry referred to so far is the inner poem giving rise to the outer form, not vice versa. Nowhere in the whole body of work are you likely to find a sonnet, a villanelle, or even some formulaic version of blank verse. The grouping of words & their layout on the page are treated as matters of feeling, not of formula.
Ironically, this can be considered the case even in what might otherwise be taken as an exception to her not using shared conceptions of form, that being her hokku, renga & weathergram practice. Here, too, even in traditional contexts, her sensitive experience unites inner & outer, impression & expression, to fine tune the flexible relations of details & form…. [1/21/2023]