"Their Tranquil Lives" by Kathleen Spivack

The following is an excerpt from Kathleen Spivack's poem "Their Tranquil Lives" that won the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Award. Kathleen also won the Sow's Ear Poetry Award and has a new book out "A History of Yearning" ( Sow's Ear Poetry Review) that can be purchased at the Grolier Poetry Book Shop in Harvard Square. The prize-winning poem appears in "A History of Yearning" collection as well.





Their Tranquil Lives






***(First Prize, Allen Ginsberg Poetry Award 2010.)


"Oh lost world of Gustav Klimt,
the jeweled and doe-eyed women
swam the walls and ceilings
of pre-Holocaust Vienna’s
ornate opera. Women’s compliance
did not need to be stated,
was pink and white
and not hidden by drapes.

World War I had not yet happened.
The city was a beaker spilling over
with bits of gold applied
which one could drink
or pour into, carefully
lavish and lucky.

Outside the window apples
shone in their dappled garden.
The women had proud
names, and pregnancies.
They rose like mermaids through
their tranquil lives,
upward and passionate.
The insides of their wrists
were white and still unmarked,
smoothed with kisses:..."




– Kathleen Spivack- ( Excerpt from "A History of Yearning" )