Lit Mags
The Powerful, the Soft, the Splendid
Three poems about authority by Sarah Mangold
The Powerful, the Soft, the Splendid
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Ideas
Ideas about where it was appropriate for women to exert authority: American Fuchsia Society, California Spring Blossom and Wild Flower Association, Business Men’s Garden Club, Save the Redwoods League, Council for the Protection of Roadside Beauty
Desire
Attribute the practice to desire
articulation of the visible proof of experience
skin disrupts the distance
the complete record of frontier
passing into history
devotion to the task at hand
Practice such expertise
variant of the skin trade
such doubts notwithstanding
as I pause in the midst of this recital
Dear
Evidence of her desire
an artifact of its takeover
Bones
Though all my bones collapse on the platform. How kind
they were to me. How careful for my comfort. Women!
Ah! As I have recently differed unapproached by railway.
Had not then the franchise better educated, better fitted,
well-too-do, cart to lecture. Antelopes and their native
neighbors form an attraction, even among the many
fascinations of the century’s gathered productions. On this
journal how thoroughly I approve her conduct. Where she
has done on the one hand rash not marked. Record my
view that it has been bravely done, and most usefully done.
Suggesting the altitudes at which they were found.
The powerful, the soft, the splendid.
