Yesterday, my friend, Carrie, told me the story of Janet Frame’s Goose Bath Poems, which Carrie is reading at the moment. The poems are so named because Frame used the old then unused goose bath after the geese had gone as a ‘receptacle’ for her poems, one after the other as she wrote them down.
Carrie also told me how Janet Frame had received several letters from people asking her to appear at this or that event.
Frame wrote back courteously enough. Here I am paraphrasing Carrie’s words. I have not read the original:
Dear so and so,
Thank you for your kind invitation to appear. I can assure you I am entirely visible, only just beyond the periphery of your vision.
Carrie was telling me how much she enjoyed Frame’s use of words.
I told my husband the story and he too was impressed by the notion of appearances, as if these people were asking Frame to transport herself like Jesus or the Holy Spirit, to transport herself, miraculously, from here to there.
Multiple layers of meaning.
Skip to content
My attempt to find a voice after a childhood of silence.