Last Thursday, during my processing of the Maine Women in the Fine and Performing Arts (MAWFPA) collection, I had a lovely thing happen. I am getting towards the end of re-housing all the materials in acid free folders and boxes, working my way through the remaining couple boxes of loose and disorganized papers. I had been putting off looking through this one overly full folder of items that had a title that I knew had nothing to do with anything else in the collection. When I opened it, I found it full of papers that made no sense together at all, as if some one swiped this pile off a desk corner (or two) and shoved it in a randomly titled folder. I checked in with Cathleen and together we decided it should be taken apart and sorted according to the series structure I had carried over from the organization’s filing system. So I pulled it all out and put financial things with other financial things and the couple artists’ bios and resumes in the right folder.
Also in there was this one piece of paper filled half way with someone’s story. It was a printed font, but not the typewriter font of many other documents in this collection, as it dates from about 1977 through 1983. The page was numbered 16 in the top right corner. For some reason I recognized the font and even a bit of the story or the rhythm of how it was typed out, as I still had not actually read the writing through. I hung on to it and pulled out the Membership & Submissions series that I knew contained the artists’ submissions to Spectra 2, the organization’s multidisciplinary month-long art exhibition and showcase that took place around the state of Maine in October of 1982. I located the folder with the poetry and prose submissions (a rather stuffed one) and started to go through page by page. Each submission is numbered though some are only one sheet with a poem and others are short stories or essays that are any where from a few to twenty pages.
So I kept going page by page and I found this lovely poem entitled Leaving by Rosa Lane. I had not paused to read anything yet, but I felt compelled to read this poem (see it below) and I quickly fell for it, so much so that I had to write it down for myself.
Turning back, I then kept going through the folder. I got to submission number 28, a short story called Smoke by Lucy Honig, the last one in the folder amazingly. I immediately recognized the distinct font and started flipping through the multi-page submission…page 5… page 9… page 15… I added page number 16, the last page of her short story. Last week, this was my small and pleasing moment in the archive. I am happy knowing that I put her story back together and will leave it in one whole piece.
Below is the poem I found along the way…
Tags: Lucy Honig, Maine Association of Women in the Fine and Performing Arts, poetry, Rosa Lane, Spectra
Ashley, this is a wonderful post! It captures the magic that happens in archives–magic that is usually reserved for the archivist and cataloger. As someone who usually inherits such collections after all of the pages have been found, noted, and put into their proper folders, from which different magic might ensue, I love knowing that such a thing happened before the researcher ever enters the picture. Well done. And we are lucky to have you!
Thank you Ashley and Jennifer for these posts– what wonderful Easter morning treats. Rosa Lane, Maine native, is one of our favorite poets, and we periodically do on-line searches for copies of her chapbook titled “Roots and Reckonings” printed in 1980 by Granite Press East, funded by the Maine Commission on the Arts and Humanities. What a surprise to find your posts during one of our searches. “Leaving” must have been one of her last submissions before she became the very private, recluse writer we know her to be since the early ’80′s.
30 years later, in August of 2012, Rosa finally started submitting some of her work again. Her manuscript called “Reels” was a finalist in the Poets and Writers 2013 California Writers Exchange and her poem “The Pond” was just chosen as a finalist in the contest: A Room of One’s Own Foundation’s 2013 Orlando Prize for Poetry. Imagine her surprise when we told her about your posts!
So I have a curiosity question for Ashley: I interpret your story to mean that the poem “Leaving” had something to do with Lucy Honig’s story while Bob and Catherine hear “Leaving” as something you came upon in the Spectra 2 submissions folder (#22 is written on the poem) as you were looking for the story to which the random “page 16″ belonged. Just curious, either way we’re delighted you brought “page 16″ home to submission #28, Honig’s story “Smoke”, and that we were able to enjoy Rosa’s poem from 1982 and tell her about this. Thanks again-
All the best, Ann
Ann, Bob, Catherine,
First, thank you for sharing your connection and your thoughtful comments! I completely fell in love with Rosa Lane’s poem “Leaving” and I am delighted to know that you were able to share this blog with her!
In terms of your question, I must admit that Bob and Catherine are correct. The poem did not have anything to do with Lucy Honig’s Story “Smoke” other than that they were both submissions to Spectra 2 produced by the Maine Association for Women in the Fine and Performing Arts.
And last, I am so glad to have seen your post today as it is my last day as an intern at the Maine Women Writers Collection!