Jane Austin Smiles

Part of the seduction of fiction is in identification.


Who wouldn't need to feel pretty downtrodden
to identify with the threatening surroundings
of dark Gothic passages, the screams of a virgin,
separated from her family, at the mercy of society,
running through the drafty corridors of the 18th century,
and everything bleak, bleak, bleak?

She gave us the modern heroine, each good one
since Elizabeth, with all her wizened wit.
Elizabeth, with her good-girl strength and spirit
the inspiration for Bronte's Jane Eyre, a governess,
her passionate independence; educated, autonomous,
in revolt against the lot; id, locked in the attic.

Classic heroines, their lines censored, metaphor straitjacketed,
topsy-turvy corsets tight as Scarlet O'Hara's, but sadly, not so loose.

Later, on the streets of romantic fiction,
fantasy is real women at the centre of story,
still painting satire on the back of deep feeling.

Horse-drawn-slow, or slow, slow -  - quick-quick-slow,
down a winding road of flowers and hedgerow; hay,
soft lace, muslin, frills...watch the pace of rugged landscape,
there's a willful spirit emerge through the ages,
our indomitable, incorrigible, formidable woman
until she's full mettle throttle and a real warm heart.

See her fierce liberation on the pages of every day,
in the leaping of her zeitgeist on the squares,
on the curled lip canvas of walls, her words
are the cinematic graffiti of women's culture,
of fiery clouds calligraphic across blue skies.

(Jane Austen smiles. Another modern heroine writes the next page,
dipping the oceans, sitting in circles, weaving the texture of lives.)


07/08