Eileen Myles: Pick of the Week [ed. Terence Winch]

Eileen Myles, photo by Shae Detar

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Joan

 

Today, May 30th, Joan

of Arc was burned.

She was 19 and

when she died

a man saw white doves

fy from her mouth.

 

Joan was born in 1412

between Lorraine

and Champagne. Joan

was raised on legends.

Merlin said France would be

lost by a woman and saved

by a virgin. Joan was

not an adventurous girl, not

a tomboy, but very dreamy,

good, stay-at-home,

the baby of the family.

Joan never got her period.

 

She heard these voices

in the bells, she saw angels

in colored glass. She believed

the sun moved around

the earth because that’s

what she saw. She believed

God wanted Charles VII

to be King of France

because that’s what Michael,

Catherine & Margaret told

her when she listened to

the bells. Her father

said he’d drown her

if she didn’t stop this

nonsense.

 

She was 19 years old

when they burned her body in the middle of town

while she was still alive. A white dove

came out of her mouth as she died.

Five hundred and forty-eight years ago today.

A dove leaped right out of her mouth.

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Eileen Myles (they/them) came to New York from Boston in 1974 to be a poet. Their books include For Now (an essay/talk about writing), I Must Be Living Twice: New and Selected Poems, and Chelsea Girls. They showed their photographs in 2019 at Bridget Donahue, NYC. Eileen has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and an award from the American Academy of Arts & Letters. They live in New York and Marfa, TX. [For more poems and information, see this link and this previous post.] "Joan" is from I Must Be Living Twice: New and Selected Poems. Copyright© 2015 by Eileen Myles. Courtesy of HarperCollins Publishers.

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                  Isidore Patrois: Jeanne d'Arc allant au supplice [Joan of Arc Led to the Stake], 1867, oil on canvas. Musée des beaux-arts, Rouen.

Comments

[clarinda harriss]

Fascinating; Joan seems almost binary here, never reaching female puberty. I love learning things from poems and fiction! The specific places, age, and dates create a wonderful immediacy here. Thanks, both of you. Oh, and of course Joan.

[Terence Winch]

Clarinda---thanks for the comment.

[Grace Cavalieri]

It's been ages since I have read Eileen Myles so this was a treat

[Anne Harding Woodworth]

A remarkable poem about a woman who is an inexhaustible source for poetry. I heard about a lawyer who studied everything he could about Joan's trial. I don't know if it is right to include a poem here, but in honor of May 30, here's the link to the poem I wrote. https://www.dropbox.com/s/i45ggfxn9f5wruv/I%20WILL%20DEFEND%20YOU%2C%20JOAN.doc?dl=0

[Terence Winch]

Thanks, Anne, for your comment and your own excellent poem.

[matthew rohrer]

Restrained and beautiful

[lally]

another knockout by one of the champs of poetry, thanks again terence for an excellent choice and eileen for writing another poem so engagingly enlightening I was so delighted by the result I didn't even notice I left the poem more knowledgable than I entered it, let alone more entertained...

[Chris Mason]

I learned a lot from this brilliant perspective on Joan of Arc!

[Terence Winch]

Thank, mo chara, for that comment.

[Bill Nevins]

Brilliant eye opening poem on a subject we perhaps dare not look too closely at--the murder of women in Europe (and America) over centuries for the crime of being women. And there is much more, of course, to this poem.
Thanks, Eileen, and thanks, Terence!

[Terence Winch]

Bill---excellent point. Thanks for the comment.

[Peter Kearney]

The image of the dove is so important in this stirring poem, suggesting perhaps the innocence of Joan and her peace amid great trial. In the biblical story of Noah, the dove signals an earth free of past evils and ready to renew a fully transformed life. Please pardon me for now thinking of our heroine as Joan of Ark.

[Terence Winch]

Thanks, Peter. I've actually heard that some evangelicals think
Noah and Joan of Arc were married.

[Mike]

Thanks, Peter. I've actually heard that some evangelicals think - totally agree