Date of birth: Nov. 7, 1915
Date of death: Feb. 26, 2008
Website: http://www.elianabeam.com

Blind poet and grammarian

ABOUT AND BY THE AUTHOR

When I finished with high school, the Depression was there;

Employment was ailing and gasping for air,

So, college was out, cardboard innersoles in,

Jogging unheard of, and everyone thin.

So, when ego was finally trampled to dust,

I took any old job. One does what one must.

As a second-maid then, unwilling but able,

I learned how to set a magnificent table,

With roses and candles and finger-bowls, too.

Oh, well, I can laugh and, believe me, I do!

Now let’s jump ahead to dictation and phones,

To dating and dancing, house-hunting and loans –

To a time when the pill was still bucking bad weather,

And our children, all five, arrived too close together.

With no time on my hands and no coins in my purse,

I taught myself how to write lyrical verse.

By the time I was publishing, safe in my stride,

Traditional poetry sickened and died.

I had thirty-one years with the love of my youth,

Now I wasn’t yet seedy nor long in the tooth.

With my kids out of school, it was my turn at last.

I took courses in Cleveland and Athens and passed!

With lyrical poetry dead in its grave,

I then turned to art and the solace it gave,

And when I got good, when I started to sell,

My eyesight betrayed me. Oh, dammit to hell!

And so I crocheted, and my work covered acres.

I gave afghans away ’til I ran out of takers.

Now talking books cheer me; I won’t go ’round the bend.

I can read with my ears and still laugh with a friend.

© Eliana Liatti Beam

Read full biography of Eliana Liatti Beam at http://www.elianabeam.com/about.htm

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