THE LINCOLN REVIEW
IN MEMORIAM 1971
Certain women. And some young boys.
Women with some uncertainties
but something they knew about
that made them need to say something.
Two of my father’s sisters in childhood
and the first in my own lifetime –
Virginia Woolf and then,
oh in unbearably quick succession
my only sister. She died
but in her case they called it
a religious withdrawal
synchronous with late adolescence.
In a need for words there were
no words for, it seems to me now
it may have been impossible.
But I was too young then
I too took a long time growing up
and I was not aware of any need
not solved by tears or quickly effaced.
In fact supplied sooner than I was
ready. I conceived and then
I was married soon after.
I was lucky in those days and
it seems to me there were
other women whose troubles were
not to be solved by carrying the baby
even with the help of a wedding ring.
Sylvia Plath was not so simply satisfied.
Then last year the poet, Crae Ritchie,
my friend for not long enough,
a waver of flags for peace and joy.
This year, older, Stevie Smith.
In Scotland – or Ulster – she’d have
survived about half the time
by my stopwatch for I’ve been watching.
It used to be men who died for a cause
that other folk could hardly see. Now
it is women, rattling cans for aid to
the helpless, and young boys drugging
before they’ve even learned brutality?
I, personally, am getting scared
for me and my sons. And what if
I ever have a daughter?
Don’t drown us out of the world:
it could be springtime.
from "WORDS AND MUSIC"
Oh I am sick
to bloody death
from the gritty No
of a sour people
sick sick to death
And now I go
I sharpen my stainless skates
and I skate wild
on the frozen Yes
of my own joy
my joy, alone
How about you?
(June 1965)
HEADLINE! --- THIS DAY THE
PLAYWRIGHTS
BURNED THE
THEATRE
DOWN!
In the beginning
of this hopeful day
a woman is building
for herself a cage
set on the through
road of the city that
fronts the theatre.
She wears for warmth a
sedate sandwich board
that soberly states –
ALL I ASK IS FREEDOM
TO BE HEARD.
Several kindly souls
with bowls of soup
anxiously grow harsh
for she won’t eat.
They try to persuade her
that she will catch her
death and – even worse –
that she makes here a
public exhibition of
herself for which –
as Equity entreats –
there is no fee.
Called out at last,
patient police point out,
disinterested, that she has
taken up her station at the
Cross and that is sacrilege
no less, beside the
gentleman’s lavatory too.
“The gentlemen have taken
to going without” the police
appeal at last to her
humanity.
“All I ask” she weeps, and
who could doubt her? “is
freedom to speak, freedom to
be heard.”
“Speak up!” they say, over
the traffic noise and, leaving
her to it, wearying, turn away.
“THE PLAYWRIGHTS ARE ALL DOOMED!”
the woman wails, tearing at her hair
a true Cassandra, delighting in her
woe. Till gradually her mad eyes
light with hope – “THIS DAY THE
PLAYWRIGHTS BURNED THE THEATRE
DOWN” (“Explain! Explain! they
said, and she explained “They felt
the cold. That’s how it was” she
sighed.)
Oh somebody at this point
pulls the strings and her time
comes. The happy woman is
washed and dressed and urged
under applause and lights to
say her say. It is impossible
not to believe in her.
“Paranoia uncovers certain
truths” psychologists admit.
As her audience waits at last
attentively, she hesitates.
“Somewhere” she says, pulling
at a glove “somehow in the fight
I lost the very loving thing
I had to say.”
And that is all.
Authorities, proved right again,
pronounce relief – “Well, no
more trouble there! We’ve
handled that quite well and
pass the port.”
“The playwrights will not
burn the theatre down – not
yet” they murmur, relishing
their wine.
(December 1966)
The above poems are taken from THE TINY TALENT: Selected poems by JOAN URE (BRAE EDITIONS, 2018).
The editors of The Lincoln Review would like to thank the Scottish Theatre Archive, University of Glasgow Library, BRAE EDITIONS, and Joan's family for permission to publish the above poems.
Joan Ure was the pen name of Elizabeth Thoms Clark (1918–1978), a Scottish poet and playwright. She was born Elizabeth (Betty) Thoms Carswell on 22 June 1918 in Wallsend, Tyneside, of Scottish parents who moved to Glasgow. Joan chose the pen-name Ure, because it sounded more Scottish to her. Having been born in England made her self-consciously Scots, and she adopted an ironic refrain throughout her public writing: "Scottish, more or less" and "as Scots as I am." Joan Ure wrote short stories and poems as well as short plays, but she made her mark with her work for the theatre. Among her work to achieve a professional production, I See Myself as This Young Girl, an exploration of a mother-daughter relationship, was directed by Michael Meacham at the Close Theatre Club, Glasgow, in 1967.

ISSN 2632-4423