Day 18: Laura Riding, Grace Paley, Yiyun Li

Poem: Laura Riding - Forgotten GirlhoodRead here A bizarre series of poems that form a loose narrative of a girl coming into existence, taking place in a fantastical world that reminds me of both Gormenghast and Spirited Away. The stove was grey, the coal was gone. In and out of the same room One went, one came. One turned into nothing. One turned into whatever Turns into children. Mostly I like the poems which resemble the nonsense verse of children's games: One, two, three, four, more, Knock at the door, Come in, come in, Stir the stew, Warm love up In a wooden pot And serve it hot With a wooden spoon. Rap, rap, Come in, come in, Love’s the only thing That deceives enjoyably. Mother Mary and her Magdalenes, We don’t care a curse how much we’re deceived Or deceive. Again and again the poems come back to a kind of existential phenomenology, as if the narrator is a newborn with a high IQ: I am hands And face And feet And things inside of me That I can’t see. What knows in me? Is it…