#thedeadpoetssociety
I keep my answers small and keep them near;
Big questions bruised my mind but still I let
Small answers be a bulwark to my fear.
The huge abstractions I keep from the light;
Small things I handled and caressed and loved.
I let the stars assume the whole of night.
But the big answers clamoured to be moved
Into my life. Their great audacity
Shouted to be acknowledged and believed.
Even when all small answers build up to
Protection of my spirit, I still hear
Big answers striving for their overthrow
And all the great conclusions coming near.
ELIZABETH JENNINGS (1926 - 2001)
**Elizabeth Jennings was born at The Bungalow, Tower Road, Skirbeck, Boston, Lincolnshire, younger daughter of physician Henry Cecil Jennings (1893–1967), MA, BSc (Oxon.), MB BS (Lond.), DPH, medical officer of health for Oxfordshire, and (Helen) Mary, née Turner. When Elizabeth was seven years old, her family moved to Oxford, where she remained for the rest of her life. There, she later attended St Anne's College. After graduation, she became a writer.
Regarded as traditionalist rather than an innovator, Jennings is known for her lyric poetry and mastery of form. Her work displays a simplicity of metre and rhyme shared with Philip Larkin, Kingsley Amis and Thom Gunn, all members of the 1950s group of English poets known as The Movement. She always made it clear that, while her life, which included a spell of severe mental illness, contributed to the themes contained within her work, she did not write explicitly autobiographical poetry. Her deeply held Roman Catholicism coloured much of her work.**
Sources: [1]Poetry Soup, [2]Wikipedia.
©✍️CarolynCrossley
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