Home Front Girl

It really does take a village to edit poetry. My mother–Joan Wehlen Morrison–was an accomplished writer and teacher. It was only at her death that her diaries and poetry were found which she had written in the late 1930s and early 1940s as a teenage girl. I edited her diaries which were published in 2012 as the award-winning Home Front Girl: A Diary of Love, Literature, and Growing Up in Wartime America. My next project became editing her poetry, just published as Another Troy.

But editing poetry is not the easy task you might imagine. First of all, there were hundreds of pages of poetry. The beloved secretary–and dear fast friend–of my parents, Beverly Smith, typed up Joan’s poetry. Not only did she do that, Beverly lived with my dying father after the death of Joan. While he napped, she typed. They ate together with the indispensable aid of Nicki, my father’s delightful and loving health care worker. So my first tribute is to Beverly, a quasi-aunt to me and my brothers. Her cheer and indefatigable nature helped my grieving father in his final days.

Then there is my husband’s nephew, Leo. One of Joan’s poems, A.D. 79, is set the day Pompeii is destroyed. In the poem, a boy is reading Latin. My mother’s original cursive handwriting had to be teased out. Was that an “m” or an “n”? If so, what would it mean? “Non omnis moriar.” Leo, whose Ph.D. in Classics meant he was amply able to attend to my question, spent time laboring over the passage I scanned for him.

He wrote back:

“Non omnis moriar” is a famous bit of Horace, from Odes 3.30:

exegi monumentum aere perennius
regalique situ pyramidum altius,
quod non imber edax, non Aquilo impotens
possit diruere aut innumerabilis
annorum series et fuga temporum.
non omnis moriar…

“I have made a monument more lasting than bronze,
taller than the royal site of the pyramids,
which neither corrosive rain, nor the powerless North Wind,
nor the endless chain of years and the passage of time
Will be able to rip from its roots.
Not all of me will die...”

Horace 3.30 is one of the loci classici for expressions of poetic immortality in Latin. The text above is quoted from Wickham’s 1901 Oxford Classical Text edition.

Leo and I exchanged a number of emails along these lines, plus he was doing research to double check the passage for me. I couldn’t have edited this poem successfully without his invaluable and much appreciated help.

Given my mother’s reflection on the depressing aspects of life when she was seventeen after the World War II had begun, Leo wrote how she was “emo-Grandma”! This has brought many a chuckle to our family’s lives.

Finally, last but certainly not least: Claudia Cutter. She is a dear friend of my daughter, Sarah. And she, along with Sarah, read the master draft of Joan’s poems (200 pages — much longer than the 50 page chapbook now published) and plowed through the verse, dog-earring their favorites. An English major, I trust Claudia’s impeccable taste. She did this while visiting us in my the family house of my husband Jim in Hull, Massachusetts during spring break. It sounds like a time of trees budding and flowers blossoming, but a dramatic snow storm had just hit. I hope the verse warmed Claudia’s and Sarah’s hearts–their work certainly warmed mine!

Once the book was accepted for publication, I had to narrow down which poems would be included. Sarah, my son John, and Jim all read the poems, indicating their favorites (I did as well, of course). Then I collated their choices. If a poem was chosen by all of us, I was sure to include it. Then I proceeded from there. I wanted the reading experience to make an emotional narrative for the reader. This had to be considered, as well as my determination to have them appear chronologically.

So, it may seem “easy”–editing poetry. Take it from me–it isn’t. But with loving friends and family, the task is much easier. I thank them all with deep love and abiding affection and thanks. And, last but certainly not least, little Gwen made working on Joan’s poetry even more delightful–I still can see in my mind’s eye our little corgi watchfully protecting my mom in the kitchen of my childhood home.

Noble Gwen

A recent article reveals how the brain cells of a victim in Pompeii of the eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79 were found intact. The devastation of that cataclysmic event impressed my mother, Joan, a historian and poet. At age seventeen Joan wrote a poem reflecting on the every day lives of those living in that now-famed, even infamous, Italian city. What caused her grief was the mundane nature of normal people whose lives were destroyed so suddenly. This poem and others can be found in Another Troy, her recently published volume of verse. Here is a section of the poem, A.D 79.

….A girl ran through the street, her cape flapping, scared.

A noise of query rose, then fright and then despair,

A mad race for the sea now black with wind,

Then captured by the ashes of hot death

And all the businessmen and little boys were dead.

I can stand the broken gods of Troy all lost

Or all the empty temples by the sea of Greece

Poets and the philosophers of ancient worlds all dead—

But not the loaves of bread at Pompeii

            ….still uneaten.                        (February 25, 1940)

I am delighted to announce the publication of Another Troy— the recently discovered World War II poetry by my mother, Joan Wehlen Morrison, author of Home Front Girl. I edited these poems which tell a unique – and true — story as this teenager loses her innocence due to the impending war and its violent arrival. I’ll be blogging about Another Troy along with Home Front Girl on this website. Enjoy these reviews–I know I did! You can buy the book at the website of Finishing Line Press, Amazon, or Barnes and Noble.

Reviews

With growing solicitude at the coming of the Second World War, teenager Joan Wehlen Morrison struggled in her poems to understand the enormous realities of her time while also learning about love and romance, the passage of time, maturity – topics common to most of us at such an age, but topics troubled profoundly by the hatred and loss and violence of the 1930s and 40s. Reading these poems is remembering with nostalgia what it means to be young and setting out. Sadly, they also echo the deeper question that all of us – young and old alike – are today once again forced to ponder: what is to come of us in a world gone mad? In Another Troy, Morrison aches for answers, for truth, in the way only a teenager can.

–Steve Wilson, author of The Reaches

Did you ever own a notebook, and did you open it, perhaps at night, to write about the daily happenings of a world whose pace, magnitude, beauty, and violence staggered your imagination? If so, these poems are for you. Joan Wehlen Morrison’s Another Troy captures what it feels like to be an emerging political, intellectual, and romantic young woman in wartime—when, as William Carlos Williams famously wrote: “It is difficult/to get the news from poems/yet men die miserably every day/for lack/ of what is found there.” The poems in Another Troy see beauty and brokenness and honor both. “The moon is a bent feather in the sky” in one poem; “there is an empty orchard in Flanders/Rotting in the rain” in another. Tender and aware, these poems cannot help but imagine foreshortened futures, so that when Morrison writes that the “wind was like a boy’s breath,” we wonder if the boy is at war, and if he will live to see adulthood. In other poems, the poet scrutinizes her own life, imagining “this girl in the blue dress and Juliet cap — / I will be utterly disappeared.” Luckily for us, Morrison’s poems have not disappeared, and when she writes, “I am a moving window[,]” I feel lucky to have been able to glimpse the world through it.

–Cecily Parks, author of O’Nights and Field Folly Snow

Prepare to be charmed and enthralled by these beautiful, sincere poems full of artistry and verve. Joan Morrison, born in 1922, confronts the realities of war and love in witty and learned verse. “But darling, platonic as I know we are,/I fear, against all reason, I still want to be/Immensely Epicurean with you,” she writes. Her work transcends the passing seasons of a nation and a life.

–Tina Kelley, author most recently of Rise Wildly and Abloom & Awry (CavanKerry Press)

 

Joan at summer camp on September 1, 1939. You can see what wrote exclamation marks after the date.

My mother’s book of poems, Another Troy, is forthcoming. Joan’s writings reflect on war and loss. Here is a journal entry about Memorial Day from when she was age 14 on May 30, 1937: “This is Memorial Day and it rained. Daddy and I went out for a walk and when it rained went under a tree near the statue of the Unknown Soldier. He looked so lonely there in the rain (the Soldier, I mean), and there wasn’t even a wreath to mark the day. It seemed so pitiful. So I picked a little flower from the tree and ran in the rain to lay it at his feet. And I’m sure he knew I did it and was glad that someone remembered him on this day. It was only a little flower, but I’m sure it meant as much as a wreath. I’m glad I did it, as I’m sure the Soldier is ….”

The gorgeous cover and photos of my mom and me about fifteen years ago

Delighted to announce the upcoming publication of Another Troy–the poems of my mother, Joan Wehlen Morrison, that I’ve edited. Reserve your copy today to celebrate National Poetry Month. And many thanks to Steve Wilson, Cecily Parks, and Tina Kelley for their lovely blurbs. Here’s a poem for your to enjoy today:

April 17, 1941 [Age 18]

Paris must have fallen on a night like this,
All honey-fresh scented and sleepy.
I felt her breathe just now.
Troy must have fallen too, in spring.

Here is where you can order a copy of Another Troy at Finishing Line Press.

I’m so honored to share the generous blurbs contributed by three amazing poets whose work I revere.

With growing solicitude at the coming of the Second World War, teenager Joan Wehlen Morrison struggled in her poems to understand the enormous realities of her time while also learning about love and romance, the passage of time, maturity – topics common to most of us at such an age, but topics troubled profoundly by the hatred and loss and violence of the 1930s and 40s. Reading these poems is remembering with nostalgia what it means to be young and setting out.  Sadly, they also echo the deeper question that all of us – young and old alike – are today once again forced to ponder: what is to come of us in a world gone mad?  In Another Troy, Morrison aches for answers, for truth, in the way only a teenager can.

–Steve Wilson, author of The Reaches.

Did you ever own a notebook, and did you open it, perhaps at night, to write about the daily happenings of a world whose pace, magnitude, beauty, and violence staggered your imagination? If so, these poems are for you. Joan Wehlen Morrison‘s Another Troy captures what it feels like to be an emerging political, intellectual, and romantic young woman in wartime—when, as William Carlos Williams famously wrote: “It is difficult/to get the news from poems/yet men die miserably every day/for lack/ of what is found there.” The poems in Another Troy see beauty and brokenness and honor both. “The moon is a bent feather in the sky” in one poem; “there is an empty orchard in Flanders/Rotting in the rain” in another. Tender and aware, these poems cannot help but imagine foreshortened futures, so that when Morrison writes that the “wind was like a boy’s breath,” we wonder if the boy is at war, and if he will live to see adulthood. In other poems, the poet scrutinizes her own life, imagining “this girl in the blue dress and Juliet cap — / I will be utterly disappeared.” Luckily for us, Morrison’s poems have not disappeared, and when she writes, “I am a moving window[,]” I feel lucky to have been able to glimpse the world through it.

–Cecily Parks, author of O’Nights and Field Folly Snow

Prepare to be charmed and enthralled by these beautiful, sincere poems full of artistry and verve. Joan Morrison, born in 1922, confronts the realities of war and love in witty and learned verse. “But darling, platonic as I know we are,/I fear, against all reason, I still want to be/Immensely Epicurean with you,” she writes. Her work transcends the passing seasons of a nation and a life.

–Tina Kelley, author most recently of Rise Wildly and Abloom & Awry (CavanKerry Press.)

The New York Times reports how “forgotten Dutch diarists of WWII…speak at last.” Not only Anne Frank recorded her tragic experiences, but many other everyday folks did as well.

“Petronella Jacoba Margaretha Venema-van Nijnatten, recounts events including her arrest, along with her mother, by the Germans during a house search.”

Over 2,000 diaries were collected after the war and are only now getting their just due. They include all points of view, even one woman who admires the Nazis. Joan would have particularly loved the diary of a 10-year-old girl. In the original NYT article by Nina Siegal and Josephine Sedgwick, you can even flip the pages of her little book.

10-year-old “Leni Bijlsma collected poems in an album that was filled with contributions from friends and family.”

Christmas Tree at Marshall Field’s Department Store

My mother, Joan, wrote this Christmas poem when she had just turned 10.  Merry Christmas from 1932!

The Fir Tree

I am a little fir tree,

As green as green can be,

And if you’ll put the trimmings on me,

I’ll be your Christmas tree.

Now hear the Fred Allen Christmas Show from 1932.

I’m delighted to announce that Home Front Girl has just won two awards from Literary Classics: Gold Medal in Historical Young Adult and the Words on Wings Book Award (only four books get a Top Honors, which this is).
My mom, Joan, would be thrilled. I’m so grateful.

I was delighted last year when my mom’s diaries in the book I edited, Home Front Girl: A Diary of Love, Literature, and Growing Up in Wartime America, was released in paperback. That meant more people could enjoy my mom’s amazingly precocious insights into God, nature, love, and war. I submitted the new edition to book awards and currently it is a finalist for a Literary Classics Book Award! I’ll know more in a few weeks, but I’m so excited for Joan–only wish she could be here to share in the exciting news.

Home Front Girl is a finalist for a Literary Classics Book Award!

On the other hand, Joan herself was a bit skeptical of awards. Here she is at age 15, describing how she found out about an award she won.

Sunday, June 19, 1938

This edition from the 1930s was illustrated by Rockwell Kent

Well, I won first prize for my essay on Martin Luther today! You know, the one I sat up till 2:30 for last Saturday. Well, I won! I was so surprised! It was announced in church and I was sitting in the choir blissfully counting my feet (two of them), when I heard an acolyte whisper, “Joan Wehlen, she’s here.” And Pat poked me and I got up to receive the prize. It was a book, Moby Dick, signed by Father Carr and Mr. Hebley and inscribed “First Prize.” So there!

Today was the last Sunday School Sunday of the season. Prizes for perfect attendance given out. Little crosses. Of course I didn’t get one! Not for perfect attendance. Of the 15 who had perfect attendance so far, only seven were there to receive their prizes. Very embarrassing. You know, I promised to split my prize if I won it with Mrs. Love as she dictated some Martin Luther notes to me, but I couldn’t rip up the book, so I guess I keep it.

I also have some exciting news about more writings from Joan, which I’ll share soon!