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Vol. III Fall/Winter 2008-2009 |
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Poetry written by Cheltenham Township Adult School Workshop Participants |
Home |
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Poems Linda Barrett Ruth Deming Jan Felgoise Marion Fox Angela Glover Maxine Hobbs Grace Lynch Marvin Thall
Edited by Kristine Grow For more information about Cheltenham Township Adult
School |
Marvin Thall One of the
Gone George was first in war, first in
peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen. He owned a huge worked by hundreds of field slaves. In their he and Martha were attended by house slaves, politely called servants, like Betty, a seamstress wedded to Andrew Judge, their indentured tailor--
Betty and Andrew birthed a daughter, they named Oney. Oney Judge at 16, was sent with six other servants, to the Oney became the personal body servant of the First Lady. Bright and competent, Oney was a trusted confidante for the First Lady. Six years later, the moved to Oney became aware of alarming news-- She had been promised as a surprise wedding present to Martha's granddaughter, Eliza Custis, in Oney turned to freemen and abolitionists in the City, who planned her escape. While the family dined, Oney was hidden by her friends, and put on a ship to The President enraged at this ungrateful wench-- hadn't she been treated like a family
member? Oney's younger sister, Delphy, was made the wedding gift; but George Washington continued to hunt Oney, using slavecatchers, cajolement, and the Law to get her. Oney was a child when Andrew Judge fled from servitude;
Now, like her father, she was one of the gone. Oney married a free-black sailor, John Staines, and raised three children. She taught herself to read. The 1793 Fugitive Slave Act, signed by President Washington, made Oney live her last 52 years as a fugitive. Until her death in Oney Judge, engaged in her community, a poor freewoman, proud of her struggle with the famous President. We remember her as one of the countless gone. A
Plague on Both Your Houses My poems won't steal or plagiarize, but there may be occasional lies. Romeo & Juliet gave me this title, playing plague against plagiarize, and we may wish the plague on the huge banking and auto houses, whose greedy mistakes loused up the economy--they now beg us for aid-- and about plagiarize, it's not wise to use another's thoughts without permission, but to borrow or copy from poets past, is quite alright in the prosody tradition, since the Bard, Whitman, and the others are dear departed, we may copy them with respect, at no cost, as long as we obey the Bard's advice: This above all: to thine own self be
true, and it must follow as the night the day, Thou canst then not be false to any man. |
"Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it." Hannah Arendt
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| Editor's note: At this time, The Tookany Review is accepting only the work of writers who are enrolled or have been enrolled in Cheltenham Adult School writing workshops.
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