The Panic Bird - Softcover

Schneider, Myra

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1900564211 ISBN 13: 9781900564212

Publisher: Enitharmon Press, 1998

Synopsis

The unifying theme in Myra Schneider's newest collection is finding the self, uncovering and accepting the past, experiencing the present fully. The poems are presented as stories, inner myths, memories and thoughts set off by a photograph, a fantasy in the bath, an address to a dragonfly, the recreation of a walk in Madeira, or an extraordinary evening in Trinidad. The long narrative poem at the center of the book, The Waving Woman, traces the effects of dramatic events and difficult situations on the main characters.

About this title

From the Author:

Myra Schneider's seventh poetry collection
The unifying theme of this collection is finding the self, uncovering and accepting the past, experiencing the present fully. The poems are presented as stories, inner myths, memories and thoughts set off by a photograph, a fantasy in the bath, an address to a dragonfly, the recreation of a walk in Madeira, an extraordinary evening in Trinidad. There are three poems that explore directly my difficult relationship with my parents. 'The Waving Woman', the long narrative poem in the centre of the book is a compressed novel with a contemporary urban setting. It traces the effects of dramatic events and painful situations on the main characters.

I am very proud to have a recommendation on the back of the book by Les Murray, the world famous Australian poet.

The drafting of the title poem is discussed in 'Developing Pieces of Work' Part Four of 'Writing for Self Discovery' (Element Books 1998) which I wrote with John Killick.

I include a poem which is in 'The Panic Bird'. It was triggered by Egon Schiele's painting 'Mother and Daughter':

NEED

The mother is small-boned,/delicate as a folded bird./Her long flamingo-red/off-the-shoulder gown/exposes the sad slant of her neck.

The daughter has not thought/to hide her nakedness: tight/twin buds of buttocks, a narrow trunk. Impulsively/she hugs the quiet fire that wraps

her mother. Their heads touch,/mingle haystack-gold hair/threading from the same source./Here is closeness beyond flesh -/each comforting, comforted.

The tenderness stops my breath/with a blade of pain that splits me/apart. In the gape is my mother's face/closed to mine, the silence/dividing us cold as glass.

And down a passage I make out/a dark-haired child - not me/but her. Blanks for eyes she shrinks /from the woman whose pecking mouth /never sweetens with kisses.

In pale outline behind /the bitter woman is a girl /whose fingers flutter music. Duty /chains her to sickroom, kitchen,/rubs salt into her feelings...

So it goes back, must not go on. /I sift feathers of kindness, find /illuminating words, fill myself;/mark the place in my book /with the clasped mother and daughter.

This poem was also published in: 'Writing Women' 1995, 'Quadrant' (Australia), 'The Dybbuk of Delight' - anthology of poems by Jewish women (Five Leaves 1995) and it was broadcast on Woman's Hour in 1995.

From the Back Cover:

THE UNIFYING THEME in Myra Schneider's new collection is finding the self, uncovering and accepting the past, experiencing the present fully. The poems are presented as stories, inner myths, memories and thoughts set off by a photograph, a fantasy in the bath, an address to a dragonfly, the recreation of a walk in Madeira, an extraordinary evening in Trinidad. The long narrative poem at the centre of the book traces the effects of dramatic events and difficult situations on the main characters.

About this edition

• Publisher: Enitharmon Press
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 1900564211
• ISBN 13: 9781900564212
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 96