Bound by nothing. Quite a story to tell. A history changed, deep in prayer. Collegiate, felicitous, prosaic. October by the lake, personal scripture, a secret kept within. This present state, conjured, imagined. The circus girl is here, an awful fate. Further back in time, Emily Hale reaching out. Abandoned, denied. All she knew, kept the poet alive.
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Notes: I’m kind of obsessed with the circumstances surrounding Emily Hale. I watched a documentary about T. S. Eliot that first brought her to my attention and went on to read what I could about their relationship. I wrote the poem, “The unnatural code” in my book, “Swords”, which (amongst other things) explores what happened to Hale. The same theme permeates other works, such is its resonance. I was deeply affected by how coldly she was treated after such an intense connection. Emotionally distanced and shut out by Eliot who, later in life, felt it necessary to formally put his apostasy on record, discrediting Hale’s importance to both him and his poetry.
‘I Know That Now But I Didn’t Know That Then‘ by Paul Busst is a collection of tales of the diminutive published by Phantom Page and is available in paperback.
Phantom Page 