Mary Wortley Montagu and Her Son
by Jean-Batiste van Mour
The May poetry
challenge was judged by Linda Wallin, Vice President of Poets & Patrons of
Chicago (and nominee for President of that organization).
The May challenge
was a rhyming poem. The judge selected the best of the serious poems and the
best of the humorous poems submitted. She commented that in these poems, the
rhythm was good and the rhymes were not forced.
Here is the
winning humorous poem:
Seniority
It's often said as we
grow old
Our tales emerge more
than twice told
As life pushes past
September
It could be we don't
remember
This condition is not
tragic
As we age there's
still some magic
Early mornings bring
strange new pains
We pop some pills to
fool our brains
These ills increase
our doctors' pay
Medicare checks roll
in each day
Much less our
relatives expect
They're happy if we
stay erect
No dearth of TV shows
to view
Each rerun looks like
its brand new
When I was young I
spouted jokes
About that group
called older folks
But now that I am one
of those
Legs encased in
compression hose
If we should meet let
me disclose
Just one more tale
before I doze
John J. Gordon
Here is the
winning serious poem:
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
1689-1762
My
beauty and my wit defined my youth.
My
poems were admired, but in truth
it
was my long eyelashes that gave rise
to
sly, adoring comments on “veiled eyes.”
Then
the smallpox rained its rage and ashes
on
me, pocked my skin and plucked my lashes.
My
mirror confirmed what others’ glances told:
Without
their veils, my eyes were “fierce” or “bold.”
Again
the pox struck close – my brother died.
Grieving,
I raged. I hated and denied
God.
Then I wept. But loss helped me devise
a
more profound employment for my eyes.
My
husband as ambassador was sent
to
the Ottoman Empire, and thus I went
with
opened eyes to see a civilization
where
every mother used inoculation
against
the pox. I gladly chose prevention
for
my daughter, then pursued my intention
to
speak for inoculation when we returned
to
London. There some parents soon discerned
the
wisdom of the practice. But Turks were seen
as
pagan in much of England, and unclean.
And
the smallpox, British clergy said,
revealed
the will of God, in all they’d read,
so
they opposed the cure, as did physicians
who doubted medicine from foreign nations,
especially
since believing it entailed
trusting
a woman with her eyes unveiled.
~
Susan Fleming Holm
The
poet included a historical note (which was not given to the judge, since the
poem had to stand on its own). It is reproduced here for readers who might want
to know more about Lady Mary. Here is her note (slightly edited):
Anyone interested in the meeting of Western
and Eastern civilizations/cultures soon runs into the name of Mary Wortley
Montagu. She is most noted for the open-mindedness of her letters home from the
Ottoman Empire, where she went with her husband who had been appointed
ambassador from the British Empire. During the trip by coach and boat to
Istanbul, she observed and appreciated many customs that were substantially
different from those in England, especially noting the way other Europeans
heated their homes during cold weather. In England she had suffered the
smallpox, and her younger brother had died of the pox. In the Ottoman
Empire she noted right away that mothers gathered together in
"parties" to have their children inoculated, using dead smallpox
virus as the substance of the inoculation (called variolation—vaccination is
the use of the cowpox virus to inoculate—a
practice introduced by Edward Jenner in 1795). Lady Mary was
supported in her desire to inoculate her own child by Emanuel Timoni, an
Italian doctor who lived in Istanbul. When she returned to London in 1721,
Caroline, the Princess of Wales, supported Lady Mary in her desire to introduce
variolation to English parents. Many parents tried it and found it a good
idea! However, many British physicians insisted on bleediing and purging
patients before the process, and one or two persons died. The physicians (and
clergy, as well) then attacked Lady Mary, and found the practice of variolation
offensive, because it had come from "a pagan country" and was
introduced by a woman. Eventually it caught on and was widely practiced
until Jenner's discovery, 95+ years later, that being infected with the
cowpox prevented small pox infection. Variolation was also practiced in
the New World, where there is a good chance it was introduced by slaves, who
knew of it through Arab culture, which may have been the source of the practice
of variolation. Abigail Adams had her children variolated. John Adams and
a number of other important statesmen had already been variolated. Lady Mary
had been a good friend of Alexander Pope, a leading poet of the day, who
employed rhymed couplets and perfected and advocated that form of poetry, and
Lady Mary followed his example. Thus I decided to write about her in rhymed
couplets. Most of my information comes from Biography of Lady Mary by
Robert Halsband (Oxford University Press, 1956).
You can google Lady Mary's name and find other pictures and biographical information.
Bios:
John J. Gordon is married and has three children,
eight grandchildren, and one great-granddaughter. He is a member of the
Illinois State Poetry Society and of Poets & Patrons of Chicago (the judge
had not seen this poem before, and did not know he had written it). He is
published in the Journal of Modern Poetry,
Distilled Lives, Beaver Island Reader, Prairie
Light Review, and on several on-line sites.
Susan Fleming Holm taught Spanish language and literature at
Monmouth College in Illinois, and English at Atatürk University in Erzurum,
Turkey. She has traveled and done research in the Middle East, Mexico, Central
America, and Cuba. Her poetry and essays have been published in the United
States and in Turkey.
