{"id":151007,"date":"2025-09-07T08:00:19","date_gmt":"2025-09-07T12:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=151007"},"modified":"2025-09-06T14:27:38","modified_gmt":"2025-09-06T18:27:38","slug":"happy-birthday-edith-sitwell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=151007","title":{"rendered":"“I have often wished I had time to cultivate modesty… but I am too busy thinking about myself.” — poet Edith Sitwell"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nBorn on this day. <\/p>\n

I don’t remember Sitwell being “read” in my poetry class in college, and I don’t remember her being covered in my English or Humanities classes in high school. She doesn’t seem to be one of the “big ones” anymore, although it may just be that I have not been paying proper attention. <\/p>\n

Edith Sitwell reminds me a little bit of Martha Graham. Graham had a strict background in classical ballet, and then veered off into “modern” dance, although it wasn’t called that at the time. For the most part it was called: “WTF is she doing???” or “Is she ALLOWED to do that??” The dancers in Graham’s troupe were some of the best ballet dancers in the world, and she pushed them in other ways. If a dancer didn’t have a strong background in the mainstream classical tradition, they wouldn’t have lasted a day with Martha Graham. Edith Sitwell has a similar reactionary attitude. Not reactionary in terms of politics, but reactionary in terms of trying to define herself against<\/em> all that came before. Sitwell is interesting because she seems quite bohemian in many ways, while on the other hand she lived in a huge ancestral mansion, surrounded by the heavy tradition of family and riches, part of a long family tree. A strange dichotomy.<\/p>\n

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Edith Sitwell 1923-35 Wyndham Lewis 1882-1957 Presented by Sir Edward Beddington-Behrens 1943 http:\/\/www.tate.org.uk\/art\/work\/N05437<\/p><\/div>\n

Like so many other poets of her day, T.S. Eliot’s Prufrock<\/i> was a game-changer.<\/p>\n

She wanted to find language appropriate to the new modern age, its technology, danger, the bleak catastrophe of World War I. The 19th century forms flat out would not do<\/i> anymore. Still, she borrowed heavily. All them Modernists did.<\/p>\n

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\nHer public readings were elaborate performance-art pieces. Sitwell was very tall (her mother had been disappointed in her daughter’s awkward looks) and made a striking impression. She never had to work for a living. She edited a literary review in the years leading up to World War I. A lot of people were irritated by the whole Edith Sitwell thing. Many refused to take her seriously because of her wealth. <\/p>\n

She was an avant-garde person living in a baronial mansion. The funniest thing is eventually she did become part of the establishment when she was made a “Dame” of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth and went on huge reading tours around England and America. Here she is meeting Marilyn Monroe! Look at Marilyn’s alert delighted posture. <\/p>\n

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\n(This is a very good article<\/a> giving some background to this meeting, the first of many. They hit it off.)<\/p>\n

Here’s her most famous poem, written during the Battle of Britain in 1940, as London was being bombarded by German air attacks. She lived through the Blitz, experienced the horror. <\/p>\n

Still Falls the Rain<\/big><\/strong>
\nThe Raids, 1940. Night and Dawn<\/i><\/p>\n

Still falls the Rain—
\nDark as the world of man, black as our loss—
\nBlind as the nineteen hundred and forty nails
\nUpon the Cross.<\/p>\n

Still falls the Rain
\nWith a sound like the pulse of the heart that is changed to the hammer-beat
\nIn the Potter’s Field, and the sound of the impious feet<\/p>\n

On the Tomb:
\nStill falls the Rain<\/p>\n

In the Field of Blood where the small hopes breed and the human brain
\nNurtures its greed, that worm with the brow of Cain.<\/p>\n

Still falls the Rain
\nAt the feet of the Starved Man hung upon the Cross.
\nChrist that each day, each night, nails there, have mercy on us—
\nOn Dives and on Lazarus:
\nUnder the Rain the sore and the gold are as one.<\/p>\n

Still falls the Rain—
\nStill falls the Blood from the Starved Man’s wounded Side:
\nHe bears in His Heart all wounds,—those of the light that died,
\nThe last faint spark
\nIn the self-murdered heart, the wounds of the sad uncomprehending dark,
\nThe wounds of the baited bear—
\nThe blind and weeping bear whom the keepers beat
\nOn his helpless flesh… the tears of the hunted hare.<\/p>\n

Still falls the Rain—
\nThen— O Ile leape up to my God: who pulles me doune—
\nSee, see where Christ’s blood streames in the firmament:
\nIt flows from the Brow we nailed upon the tree<\/p>\n

Deep to the dying, to the thirsting heart
\nThat holds the fires of the world,—dark-smirched with pain
\nAs Caesar’s laurel crown.<\/p>\n

Then sounds the voice of One who like the heart of man
\nWas once a child who among beasts has lain—
\n“Still do I love, still shed my innocent light, my Blood, for thee.”<\/p>\n

\nThere’s a lot to unpack in this poem. Since her live performances were so much a part of her art, I thought it would be interesting to share the recording of her reading “Still Falls the Rain”, in that incantatory tone, that hollow ringing tone, meant to cast a spell. <\/p>\n

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