Sunday, May 28, 2017

Janet Frame in Baltimore

A new Janet Frame poem poster

Introducing the latest Janet Frame poem poster to be produced by Phantom Billstickers ‘Baltimore, November’ was first published posthumously in The Goose Bath (2006) and has been reprinted in Storms will Tell: Selected Poems by Janet Frame (Bloodaxe Books, 2008) ©Janet Frame Literary Trust

 

A powerful political poem

 The theme of child poverty in this poem is typical for Janet Frame who often chose to highlight political issues in her poetry as in her other writings.

Sadly, in 2017 as I write this, child poverty is now a pressing election issue in Janet Frame's homeland of New Zealand. Poverty also still afflicts the East Baltimore Janet Frame knew so well. The area later became the setting for the brilliant TV series 'The Wire'.
Janet Frame with friend, East Madison Street,  Baltimore, Maryland, USA

Janet Frame (1924-2004) is New Zealand’s most internationally acclaimed author. She won numerous awards for her novels, short stories and poetry, and her bestselling autobiography An Angel at My Table was adapted for the big screen by Jane Campion in 1990. Janet Frame travelled widely and lived for periods of time in England, Spain, France and the USA. In 1986 the American Academy of Arts and Letters made her an Honorary Foreign Member at a ceremony she attended in New York. The photograph above by John Money shows Frame in the back garden of his house in East Baltimore where she made extended visits over several decades.
 

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