"Who was Mary Shelley?"
by Lorine Niedecker
Who was Mary Shelley?
What was her name
before she married?
She eloped with this Shelley
she rode a donkey
till the donkey had to be carried.
Mary was Frankenstein's creator
his yellow eye
before her husband was to drown
Created the monster nights
after Byron, Shelley
talked the candle down.
Who was Mary Shelley?
She read Greek, Italian
She bore a child
Who died
and yet another child
who died.
Lorine Niedecker (American, 1903-1970) lived in isolation in rural Wisconsin most of her life and often on the edge of poverty.
She struck up a correspondence with Objectivist poet Louis Zukofsky, and when she visited him in New York and became pregnant with his child, he insisted she have an abortion. In later years when she wrote a book of poems inspired by her affection for Louis Zukofsky's young son Paul, he discouraged her from publishing it.
The poem about Mary Shelley can be found in Lorine Niedecker's Collected Works, edited by Jenny Penberty.
by Lorine Niedecker
Who was Mary Shelley?
What was her name
before she married?
She eloped with this Shelley
she rode a donkey
till the donkey had to be carried.
Mary was Frankenstein's creator
his yellow eye
before her husband was to drown
Created the monster nights
after Byron, Shelley
talked the candle down.
Who was Mary Shelley?
She read Greek, Italian
She bore a child
Who died
and yet another child
who died.
Lorine Niedecker (American, 1903-1970) lived in isolation in rural Wisconsin most of her life and often on the edge of poverty.
She struck up a correspondence with Objectivist poet Louis Zukofsky, and when she visited him in New York and became pregnant with his child, he insisted she have an abortion. In later years when she wrote a book of poems inspired by her affection for Louis Zukofsky's young son Paul, he discouraged her from publishing it.
The poem about Mary Shelley can be found in Lorine Niedecker's Collected Works, edited by Jenny Penberty.
