The Butterfly Effect

Susan Hawthorne

• Publisher: Spinifex Press
• Year: 2006
• ISBN:
  9781742194066
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

The flap of a butterfly's wing in one part of the world can cause devastating storms on the other side, just as the word "lesbian"—a force full of vitality and world-changing creativity—can destroy families and bring down governments. Evoking the ancient worlds of pre-Vedic and Sapphic lovers, medieval jonglaresas, and nuns "fingering petals and hips, " as well as the contemporary world of circuses, global politics, friendship, betrayal, and death, the poems in this collection fold in on themselves, exploding into concentric rings of meaning, rich in symbol and metaphor.

unstopped mouths

1 unstopped mouths. This title was suggested by the phrase “stopped mouths” used by Page duBois in Sappho is Burning, p. 37. She writes, “… the ellipses [of Sappho] in the published archaic fragments, [recall] stopped mouths, messages gone astray, the utter failure of communication across a distance of centuries, provoke discomfort.” The late twentieth century has seen lesbians unstop our mouths, dig for history and intercept the messages gone astray.

2 gymnasium. The setting of a gymnasium arose from reading Olga Broumas and T. Begley’s Sappho’s Gymnasium (1994). Broumas and Begley write in their Proem: “Gymn: nude, trained, exposed, athletic, flexible, practice./Gymnasteon: imperative: tears unbecoming.” Gymnasium also means school, and in Ancient Greece it often included a sacred grove. That women used a gymnasium is not outside the realms of possibility since the Herean Games, games for sports-women, pre-dated the Olympic Games, taking place around 1000 BC and earlier.

3 Sappho. Saphon, Sappho, Sapho, Sappho, Sapphô, Psappha. Joan deJean uses the above list as an indication of the process of naming. In my own life I first encountered Sapho as a schoolgirl. As a lesbian in the early 1970s I noticed that Sappho was more usual, and later when I studied Ancient Greek Psappha became my word of choice. More recently in thinking through the derivations of words, I suggest that Sappho is related to the Sanskrit Saraswati (goddess of writing), and to the French word, savoir, to know. See India Sutra, this collection, p. 171. I have used Sappho throughout this poem in the interests of familiarity. See Joan deJean’s Fictions of Sappho 1546-1937 (1989), p. 1. The question of Sappho’s sexuality has been in constant dispute since antiquity, but whatever the case, Sappho has had an undeniable imaginative force for lesbians in Western culture.

4 topmost bough. Sappho Fragment 105a. See Page duBois, pp. 31-54, Sappho is Burning; also see Judy Grahn’s The Highest Apple: Sappho and the Lesbian Poetic Tradition (1985). Judy Grahn begins her book with a translation of this fragment from David A. Campbell’s literal translation in his Greek Lyric Vol. 1 (1982), p. 131. The fragment reads: “As the sweet apple reddens on the bough-top, on the top of the topmost bough; the apple gatherers have forgotten it – no, they have not forgotten it entirely, but they could not reach it.”

5 ritual. For more information see Giti Thadani, Sakhiyani: Lesbian Desire in Ancient and Modern India (1986), p. 108. Among the tribals of India women become sahiyas, lifelong companions. They drink rice from each other’s glass, share a mango and reciprocally wash one another’s feet.

6 silkworkers. See Janice Raymond’s A Passion for Friends (1986), pp. 113-147; also Agnes Smedley, “Silk Workers”; for a fictional treatment see Gail Tsukiyama, Women of the Silk (1993). The Chinese silkworkers formed “Sister Societies” and worked together in silk factories. Janice Raymond writes about them as “marriage resisters”. Their relationships were committed and maintained beyond the confines of Confucian (and Communist) family life.

unstopped mouths¹

we meet in the gymnasium not to huff and puff and sweat into wet towels this is a gymnasium² for women it takes into account all the needs of the body the mind the wild spirit

here lesbians read Sappho³ in her original tongue we converse and share our memories of families of ancestors without issue we compare family trees where a single woman sits alone on a branch she is on the topmost bough⁴ with the reddest apple in her hand she is about to take the first bite the final bite perhaps she will be cast off this bough not allowed to inhabit the ordinary society of people

some of us are disguised hidden in stories of two women travelling across the land enacting their dreams we are called sisters we are hidden in ancient rituals of women’s friendship where we share the same mango its juices running along our fingers and together we drink a glass of rice wine we bend toward one another caressing and washing each other’s feet in anticipation⁵ we work in the silk factories⁶ where we tend the worms their yellow thread binding us and in imitation we braid our hair we brush the long strands with our fingers we work among books in musty libraries our hair ceremonies have

7 disguise. M. Barnard Eldershaw – Marjorie Barnard and Flora Eldershaw – wrote a novel, A House is Built, that tells the story of Mary Reiby, depicted on the Australian $20 note. Rarely are these three women acknowledged as lesbians. Marjorie Barnard shared her later life with companion, Vee Murdoch. See the interview with her by Zoë Fairbairns in Writing Lives: Conversations between Women Writers (1988).

8 nameless. Most lesbians’ lives remain undocumented in the sense that either their names are known to us but their sexuality remains hidden or their sexuality is known to us but their names remain hidden. There are some writers whose names I’ve not cited in this poem, knowing they prefer not to be out. Perhaps some day we shall all feel able to be who we are.

9 shards of pots. Many of Sappho’s poems are known only from fragments some of which are found on broken pottery; this reflects the fragmented history of lesbians. The most recent poem by Sappho was discovered in 2004 by researchers at Cologne University Germany, wrapped around an Egyptian mummy. The poem reads, in part: “You for the fragrant – bosomed muses’ lovely gifts, by zealous girls, and the clear melodius lyre; But my once tender body old age has seized; my hair’s turned white instead of dark.” “Sappho Lost Poem Found” (2005).

10 tapestry. The Bayeaux Tapestry was made by the hands of nuns, the last section of it has been lost as visitors pulled at it, tearing it from the whole. On nuns as lesbians in a contemporary context see Lesbian Nuns: Breaking the Silence edited by Rosemary Curb and Nancy Mannahan (1983).

11 to see. Lesbians are most likely to recognise lesbian history. A great deal of lesbian history is denied by heterosexual scholars wishing to maintain the status quo.

12 climbing mountains. Freda du Faur (1882-1925) was the first Pakeha woman to climb Mt Cook in New Zealand’s South Island. The two peaks Du Faur and Cadogan are named after her and her lover, Muriel Cadogan. In spite of their achievements, they were forcibly separated by doctors using sleep treatment, and possibly electric shock treatment, and Muriel Cadogan died as a result. See Sally Irwin. 2000. Between Heaven and Earth: The Life of Mountaineer, Freda du Faur.

13 scaling octaves. Dame Joan Hammond 1912-1996, the first Australian operatic diva to sell a million records and golfing champion who lived with her partner, Lolita Marriott for 62 years.

14 living to a hundred and six. Monte Punshon, born Ethel Punshon in 1882 worked in the theatre, and after travelling to China, Korea and Japan in 1929, decided to learn first Mandarin then Japanese. When war broke out she used her language skills to assist Japanese interned in camps in Australia. At 105 she attended the launch of her autobiography in Kobe. She died in 1989 aged 106. Margaret Taylor’s 1989 article in Melbourne Star Observer, p. 1 and p. 3. Her life was included in the travelling exhibition, Forbidden Love which toured Australia between 1996 and 1998.

simplified a single twist of hair in a bun above a bespectacled face you wouldn’t know what we do with our fingers and our hair when we desire we disguise⁷ our interest in other lesbian lives writing under pseudonyms about our forebears

each day we make rituals of food sucking at artichoke hearts soaked in citrus peeling avocadoes with four hands tonguing cherries and berries of all kinds

some of us have...

Table of contents

• other books by susan hawthorne:
• contents
• note to sappho
• the butterfly effect
• unstopped mouths
• composition
• dialogues with death
• india sutra
• fragilities
• bibliography
• films
• acknowledgements