Yeah.
[APPLAUSE]
Raucous applause for Tyler Meier, too, please.
Thank you, Tyler, so much.
Good evening.
And happy New Year.
I'm Tim Schaffner.
And I'm pleased and honored to introduce this evening's event.
I first want to thank our guest poets, Cameron Awkward-Rich
and Franny Choi, for launching this new residency and reading
series dedicated to LGBTQ poets and poetry.
I also want to thank Tyler Meier, Michele Murphy,
and my wife, Anne Maley-Schaffner,
and my brother and sister, Valentine and Elizabeth
Schaffner, for their enthusiastic support
for this new series.
As one of the three living grandchildren of HD
and adopted grandchild of Bryher,
I wanted to share some notes on this extraordinary pair
of literary seekers, who formed a unique bond of love
and companionship that informed their lives
and their adult lives and creative output.
To set the stage, I turned to the first page of a memoir
by my mother, Perdita, the biological daughter of HD.
Perdita was in her late teens at the time she wrote, or rather,
typed these words with adolescent frankness.
I had then, as now, two mothers, HD and Bryher.
HD was the original.
But owing to a separation of my original father,
Bryher stepped in and adopted me,
taking me under her wing at a very early age.
Hence, my mother was brought up in several households
and among a chaotic assemblage of literary and artistic
figures, who made up the modernist movement
and comprised what has come to be known as the Lost Generation.
In her late years in life, my mother recounted anecdotes
of her, to say the least, unconventional childhood,
concluding with, "It was a wild menage."
[LAUGHTER]
Known as Pup, to add to the various nicknames, HD and Bryher
ascribed to themselves and their entourage,
she somehow was able, as a child,
to navigate around and negotiate with such high strung
creatives amidst the constant whirl of comings
and goings, travel, affairs, psychoanalysis
and psychic revelations, writing, publishing,
and even filmmaking that took place around her.
While much is known of HD and her major literary
contributions, less focused biographically
has been trained on Bryher.
The poet is far from silent partner,
in contrast to Gertrude Stein's quieter companion, Alice B.
Toklas.
Bryher was the driving force, both in terms of the amount
of emotional energy she devoted, not only to her beloved "Kat",
with a K, but to a host of creative individuals
and their ongoing projects.
While providing much needed financial support
to empower and sustain artists of the time,
she reserved her emotional support
for HD, of whom she was adamantly protective,
and devoted much of her time to assuring that her partner had
the requisite, quiet and solitude, in which
to write, write, write.
It is in this spirit and in the memory
of this unique and influential pairing of creative souls
that we have dedicated the new residency and reading
as a sanctuary to provide that vital quiet and solitude
needed in order that Cameron and Franny, and many, many,
many more LGBTQ poets can visit and simply write, write, write.
I want to conclude this introduction
by reading a brief excerpt from HD's poem, We Too.
We too remain, yet, by what miracle?
Searching within the tangles of my brain, I ask again,
have we too met within this maze of daedal paths,
in wound mid grievous stone where once, I stood alone?
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
And now it's [INAUDIBLE].
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you so much, Tim.
Thank you, Anne.
Beautiful.