If Renee Vivian had written a sonnet to Natalie Barney
who’d written a sonnet
to Lianne de Pougy, Lianne might’ve… but no Lianne wouldn’t have
written to Colette – she loathed Colette.
So perhaps Colette would write her dog and her dog would’ve met Gertrude
Stein’s poodle, Basket
and Gertrude would certainly have written sonnets repeatedly written sonnets written sonnets to herself. She might’ve shown
her sonnets to Sylvia Beach while they were still talking still talking still talking talking
to Sylvia would have shown
Adrienne who would write a sonnet a sonnet a sonnet to Gisèle Freund who later turned up somewhere else. And Gisèle
would undoubtedly photograph a container containing a sonnet that appeared
in the Dial. And HD noticed
that photograph and that sonnet and was thinking of it when she wrote
Bryher who mentioned it
to Fleur Adcock when Fleur was anthologising collecting and filing such things.
She knew how to sonnet
her days in New Zealand and Ursula Bethell. It was Ursula who showed Dinah Hawken
who read it to me.

Mary-Jane Duffy