Reality Imagined

 

Some people ask me what is factual and what is imagined in my novel, The Poet of Tolstoy Park. In fact, I’m working with Darby at the Fairhope Museum of History on some kind of handout for those visitors who want to know just the same thing. A writer friend said he thought it was ill-advised for a novel to be taken apart in that way, especially by the author. I get that, but on the other hand, I don’t mind.

And, so what I’m thinking is, I’ll do a sort of “faces & places” list of characters and settings in the book, and tell whether I took each from either a page in the history of Henry James Stuart, or I made it up. And if I made it up, I’ll give a little insight into the inspiration or sense of my choice there.

For instance, did Henry really have a friend named Will Webb out in Idaho, before Henry left there to come to Alabama in the 1920s? So, on my proposed list it would be written:

“Brother Will Webb is imagined. A newspaper clipping allowed Henry was not a churchgoer, though his death certificate listed for him ‘Baptist’ as a religious preference. In wondering what Henry thought about church, I decided to give him a best friend, dearly beloved, who was also a Baptist preacher. That way I could get at the spirit of the man, his religious beliefs and passions, in honest and open debate with a man he admired and respected, even though I would be also departing from the facts of Henry’s life.”

I could even someday use such a list in a writing workshop as a peek into one author’s creative process.

Okay, one more. Was Henry a poet in his round house at Tolstoy Park? No. But he was known to love poetry, and even had a favorite poem framed and hanging on the wall, according to a first-hand report in the Birmingham Agriculture Herald, March 3, 1929. Henry was also a writer, and contributed to newspapers and magazines on a variety of subjects. It was, therefore, an easy leap of imagination to also make him a poet.

Problem is, I only found a poet written to him, by a woman who was smitten with his eyes. I found no poems written by him. So I wrote some for him. I don’t think he’d mind my literary license license in that regard. Here are two of the poems that I loaned to my friend Henry for his byline.

 

The Wind, the Wave, and the Sea

And when the Wind awakened,
and moved across the still face of the water,
a tiny Wave was born, not much more than a ripple.

The Wind pushed down harder upon the Sea,
rolling the water before him, bunching it up.
And the ripple became a Wave in full.

And it grew until its head curled mightily upward and onward,
surging with great strength forward,
rising higher and higher and higher.

And now the Wave could see a great distance,
and he shuddered in fear when he saw the waves ahead of him
ceaselessly, one after another, crashing onto the sand.

They were dying with great, pitiful roars.

So the Wave cried out to the Wind, begging him to be still.
And when he would not, the Wave asked,
“What are you doing? Why are you doing this?”

“I ask you,” said the Wind, “what is it you think I do?”
“You are pushing me to my death!” the Wave said.
“And if I do as you ask, and stop pushing?” the Wind asked.

“The Sea will settle me and receive me back into herself,” the Wave said.
“And if I keep pushing you?”
“I shall crash, and—well,” the Wave said, “the Sea will receive me back into herself.”

And the Wave, water before he was born,
and water evermore after and always,
laughed a great roar and rolled mightily onward!

 

What is Love Like?

Love is like itself,
undivided, outside of time,
the sense behind the seasons,
whose circle needs no rhyme.

Love is like itself,
counting one as all,
each moment in eternity,
rising upon the fall.

Love is like itself,
without degrees or kind,
unknown to this, not that,
and seeing all while blind.

Love is like itself,
true without polarity—
a pointer on its balance staff,
in perfect singularity.