WHO WAS VIVIEN SMALLWOOD?
Vivian Smallwood was a mouse that roared—a 4’ 9" wisp of a woman who lived and died in a suburb of Mobile called "Chickasaw, Alabama. Her poetry is among the finest my sister and I have ever read, rivaling Shakespeare, and Emily Dickenson. Her poetry has a gently philosophical, and sometimes whimsical quality, like Edna St. Vincent Millays's
My candle's burning at both ends
It will not last the night,
But ah, my foes, and oh my friends,
It gives a lovely light!
She
never married, although she had nieces and nephews whom she
dearly loved (see "She Is a Lovely Lady" below.) She
lived with her twin sister, and walked to and from her job at the
bank from high school to retirement. She was honored as a poet in
many ways, and two slim volumes of her poetry were published by
the Alabama Poetry Society. She won first prize in the nation in
one of the annual Eddie Lou Cole "World of Poetry"
contests. But as is the way of such things, the first printings
of her books "Window To the South" and "On Finding
No Mouse There" sold out and there was no one to champion
additional printings. Eventually, she died and the book died with
her. And there the matter will stand unless someone resurrects it
(as was almost the case with Emily Dickenson). You might want to
try this book.
She Is a Lovely Lady
She is a lovely lady,
And God to her has given
More gold than all His hillsides,
More blue than all His Heaven.Nor wing from out the Northland,
Nor wing from out the South
Was ever shaped more sweetly
Than the kiss that is her mouth.God loved the little rabbit,
And made him soft and sleek,
But Oh! the lovely lashes
He laid upon her cheek!