12 June 2012

leather & lace

the first time I wrote to Djuna Barnes was to inform her that I'd put together a handout for my students.  it was titled "How Djuna Barnes Starts Stories."  it was a list of the first lines of her delicious short stories.


I took her flowers once but she didn't answer her door. however I did see her one time on the street. she was elegant in a suit. I didn't bother her.


my major encounter with the celebratd author of Nightwood was when I edited a festschrift for her 80th birthday. (I told the story of that publication in Mary Lynn Broe's Silence and Power.) here's the cover:






it surprises me that today wd be her 120th birthday. all those years gone by. to honor her I just read "A Night among the Horses" with its images of whips & sequins.

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