Cathleen Calbert
I don’t know precisely how gender affects my work. All I can say is that I am interested in issues of gender, especially all the constructions of womanhood, and that I remain a feminist although in this post-feminist age that is not a cool thing to say. Regarding these two poems: the italicized sections in “Talking Cure” are a verbatim translation of a dream Ida Bauer (aka the famous “Dora”) recounted to Freud, and I thought it served as an interesting counterpoint to his diagnoses. “Nightingale” also includes some direct quotations, the most startling and disappointing ones coming from Lytton Strachey and from Florence Nightingale’s own sister. Ah, an ambitious woman! What’s less attractive than that?
Nightingale
Not the immortal bird that made
a dying man dream
of fading into the forest, far away
from mortal misery
or a Byzantine machine, forged
of gold in a golden land,
this Philomel was closer to Hardy’s
small, centennial thrush.
Our Victorian Cassandra feared
her prophecies would go
unheeded as she was the moon
to her family’s Earth,
which saw only one lunar side,
the other forever unknown
to their kind (they never took her
seriously as a female priest).
In turn, she sneered at the stupor
of her mother and sister,
Parthenope, who might tire
if they put flowers into water,
their lives, as ladies, a suicide,
deprived of any occupation
other than sitting together
without a chance to think.
As for herself, “The Pope” wanted
nothing to do with matrimony
since a woman must never be
too busy to listen to a man
unless arranging his dinner,
and mothers were let alone
solely when “suckling their fools,”
she said, quoting Iago.
Nothing except “Widowhood,
ill-health, or want of bread”
explained a woman working.
She lacked these problems,
but “dilation of the heart”
eased social obligations
after her stint in Crimea
as the Lady with a Lamp.
This self-described terrier
killed unmetaphorical rats
while handling drunken nurses
who wanted to marry the men
who didn’t die of dysentery;
her devotion to duty led one
soldier to rhapsodize over kissing
her shadow as she passed.
Still, Flo’s sister swore
she lacked philanthropy.
“She’s ambitious,” Parthe hissed
as if this were a sin,
and Strachey called her an eagle,
meaning a bird of prey,
but a nightingale sings as long
as she still has her tongue.
Talking Cure
“Dora” was plagued with aphasia and vaginal catarrh
after “Herr K,” unwanted husband of her father’s lover,
pressed himself upon her. Had she been a normal girl,
A house was on fire.
she would have responded with the attraction natural
at fourteen, not such blunt disgust. Diagnosis: hysteria,
reversal of affect, displacement of sensation. Basically,
My father was standing
beside my bed
she was a prick tease, for her would-be seducer must have
received numerous hints that he was secure in the girl’s
affections. At her father’s direction, the doctor used
and woke me up.
all his powers against his patient in the name of reason,
never flinching from exposing her fantasies in the manner
of a gynecologist uncovering every inch of the female body:
I dressed myself quickly.
“pour faire une omelette il faut casser des oeufs.” In sum,
her dream of a schmuck-kästchen expressed fascination
with female genitalia, and for this “suck-a-thumbs,”
Mother wanted to stop
and save her jewel-case;
“‘No’ signified the expected ‘Yes.’” Maddeningly,
she “wanted to play ‘secrets’” with him, “I don’t know”
the way the minx admitted whatever she still repressed,
but Father said:
“I refuse to let myself
and my two children be burnt
for the sake of your jewel-case.”
He knew she awaited his kiss, having transferred her
feelings to him; if she had stayed, he could have gone
on to masturbation and latent lesbian tendencies,
We hurried downstairs,
but she broke off unexpectedly in “an unmistakable act
of vengeance.” At their last meeting, Miss Bauer at last
stopped fighting his findings. For once, she said nothing.
and as soon as I was outside
I woke up.
Cathleen Calbert’s short stories and poems have appeared in many publications, including Ms. Magazine, The New Republic, and The Southern Review. She also is the author of three books of poetry: Lessons in Space (University of Florida Press), Bad Judgment (Sarabande Books), and Sleeping with a Famous Poet (CustomWords). Her awards include The Nation Discovery Award, a Pushcart Prize, and the Tucker Thorp Professorship at Rhode Island College, where currently teaches Creative Writing.