Tag: Book Club

OH-OH! I NEVER SENT THIS, AND NOW IT IS MAY! April Showers! We woke this morning to clouds and a hint of rain, so welcome in parched New Mexico, where temperatures have reached record-breaking heights for most of March, and our irrigation ditches, which should have been flowing by now, are still dry.

The Day Before April

The day before April Alone, alone, I walked in the woods And I sat on a stone. I sat on a broad stone And sang to the birds. The tune was God’s making But I made the words. — Mary Carolyn Davies (1888–1974)

Who was Mary Carolyn Davies?

 I always remembered that opening line as “the first day of April…” but I was wrong!  Curious about who Mary Carolyn Davies was, I searched for information about her and discovered an interesting but sad story. The most complete account is an article by Dan Colburn in the online Oregon Encyclopedia.

At the the University of California at Berkeley in 1912, during her first year,  Davies made a name for herself as a poet. However, she dropped out and moved to Greenwich Village in New York City, where she arrived with $4.85 to her name.  She published her first book of poetry, came to the attention of Louis Untermeyer (poet, critic and anthologist) who said her work varied from hack work to serious poetry. She published several books of poetry and at least one play,  achieving considerble success in the 1920s, returning to Oregon home for some years before returning to New York. She apparently stopped writing, and someone found her in the 1940s, quite destitute in New York City. According to the Oregon Encyclopedia she lived until 1974, but nothig seems to be known about her later years.  A mystery investigate, perhaps?

Do You Have a Book Club?

We think We Ran Away to Sea could inspire some lively discussions.  Here are some questions to get you started.  https://jacanapress.com/book-club-discussion-guidelines

Another Good Book to Read

If you enjoyed We Ran Away Sea, you might also enjoy A Marriage at Sea — a book a neighbor alerted us to about a week ago. It turns out Kent long ago read the account written by Maurice Bailey, the subject (along with his wife Maralyn) of this book.  Although Kent and Pam did not experience a dramatic shipwreck, their book is also, in some ways, an exploration of their marriage. Here is my review: Marriage at Sea: A True Story of Love, Obsession and Shipwreck by Sophie Elmhirst. This beautifully constructed narrative draws on diaries, news accounts, and interviews to tell the story of Maurice and Maralyn Bailey to fill in the context of their incredible survival story after their sailboat was sunk by a whale in the Pacific Ocean. It really is the story of a marriage at sea, and how two unusual people, who complement each other managed to survive against incredible odds. Even though Maurice had written his own account of their survival, Elmhirst manages to hold the reader’s interest by adding background and additional information to flesh out their story and give it a meaning beyond what even the survivors may have understood. The entire story is profoundly moving, and ironically, these two, who wanted to be alone together at sea, end up becoming celebrities and darlings of the media, upon whom they have to rely for the resources to continue to pursue the life they want.