Sigourney wrote several poems in homage to the famous Connecticut tree known as the Charter Oak. This poem was written in the period of state-wide grief when the tree was struck by lightening and fell on August 21, 1856. Hartford even organized a funeral procession for the tree that drew crowds of mourners. The wood from the tree was harvested and turned into keepsakes that can still be viewed at places like the CT Museum of Culture and History and the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art. Charles De Wolf Brownell’s painting of 1857 is often on view at the Wadsworth, a spectacular homage to the tree whose frame is made from the Charter Oak’s wood. Read what Mark Twain had to say about the Charter Oak on his first visit to Hartford and to the Wadsworth in this anthology (see “Glimpse of Hartford” under Samuel Clemens/Mark Twain.) To learn what made this such an iconic tree and to see an image of Brownell’s painting, go to The Legend of the Charter Oak on Connecticuthistory.org. Continue reading Fall of the Charter Oak
Tag Archives: Hartford Setting
St. Armorer’s Church from the Outside
An armorer is a manufacturer of firearms. There is no real “St. Armorer.” Stevens got the idea for him from the Church of the Good Shepherd on Wyllys Street in Hartford. This church was built to honor Samuel Colt, the wealthy manufacturer of firearms—most famously the Colt pistol—who lived in Hartford. It is now part of Coltsville National Historical Park. The most striking aspect of this church is the Armorer’s Porch which features Colt pistols and other gun parts carved into its façade (see photos below). Continue reading St. Armorer’s Church from the Outside
The Plain Sense of Things
“The Plain Sense of Things” also takes place in Elizabeth Park. It is late autumn, the leaves have fallen, and the park looks bare. The greenhouse is exposed in all its dilapidation. The water lilies on the pond are now just “waste.” It seems to Stevens that this is how the world would look if one had no imagination. He wonders if the depression he feels, looking at this barren scene, means that his own imagination has failed. But no. He realizes that “the absence of the imagination had / Itself to be imagined.” His perception of this scene, his feelings about it, and his description of it in this poem are themselves imaginative acts. Our imaginations are always at work. Continue reading The Plain Sense of Things
Nuns Painting Water-Lilies
This poem was inspired by something Stevens saw in Elizabeth Park. In a letter to a friend, he wrote, “Until quite lately a group of nuns came [to Elizabeth Park] each morning to paint water colors especially of the water lilies” (L 610). In this poem he imagines the nuns’ thoughts. As they paint, they ponder the miraculous beauty of life which seems to them “supernatural” in origin. This experience awakens in them a refreshing clarity of mind and spirit. They feel that this is a “special day” and that they themselves are an integral part of it. There were several French orders of nuns in the Hartford area, which explains all the French terms in the poem. Continue reading Nuns Painting Water-Lilies
Vacancy in the Park
During Stevens’s years in Hartford (1916-1955) he made sure he always lived near Elizabeth Park. His final home at 118 Westerly Terrace is only a short walk from the park. He walked in the park almost every day. “Vacancy in the Park” is set in Elizabeth Park on a cold day in March. Stevens notices the footprints of someone who has walked across the freshly fallen snow. To describe the way this makes him feel, he invents three similes (“It is like…”). How does each simile make you feel? The poem concludes, “The four winds blow through the rustic arbor, / Under its mattresses of vines.” You can see that rustic arbor covered with vines in the center of the famous Rose Garden in Elizabeth Park. (This is the first municipal rose garden in the United States and the third largest rose garden in the country today.) Continue reading Vacancy in the Park
Of Hartford in a Purple Light
This poem imagines that the sun, making its daily westward journey to Hartford, brings with it all the appealing aspects of Europe. The warm “purple” light of late afternoon in Hartford reminds Stevens of the romantic allure of Paris, with the legendary beauty of its women and its rich cultural atmosphere (for instance, the elaborate architecture and musical splendor of the Paris Opera House). He jokingly compares the sun to a French poodle, wet from its trip over the ocean, shaking off a shower of iridescent drops that transform Hartford (“the town, the river, the railroad”) into a sparkling paradise. Continue reading Of Hartford in a Purple Light
from Girls of Tender Age
In Girls of Tender Age (2006), Tirone Smith drew on the memories of a Hartford childhood and the tragedy that haunted it. In Chapter Seven we meet her autistic and beloved brother Tyler, a portrait of the Charter Oak Terrace housing project in its early days, and a hilarious piano-moving scene. Continue reading from Girls of Tender Age
from Masters of Illusion
Masters of Illusion (1994) was Mary-Ann Tirone Smith’s fourth novel. It is a fictional account of the Hartford Circus Fire of 1944 and the decades following. The protagonist and the fire arrive on the first page, and then there’s a life-changing meeting on an Old Saybrook beach. Continue reading from Masters of Illusion
Speech in Honor of Cornelius Walford
The following speech was delivered at an October 15, 1874, dinner at Hartford’s premier hotel, the Allyn House, given by members of the city’s insurance industry in honor of Britisher Cornelius Walford. A resident of the city for four years, Clemens had its number. He refers to the Hartford Accident Insurance Co., a short-lived company of which he served as a director. Walford (1827-1885) was active in the British insurance industry and the author of an insurance encyclopedia. Continue reading Speech in Honor of Cornelius Walford
A Literary Nightmare (or “Punch, Brothers, Punch”)
Clemens’s short piece “A Literary Nightmare” was published in The Atlantic Monthly for February 1876. Along with its brainworm premise, it describes a walk to a wooden observation tower at the top of Talcott Mountain, about nine miles from Hartford, with his close friend Rev. Joseph Twichell (“Rev. Mr. ———” here). The two friends took this walk frequently. It is sometimes published with the title “Punch, Brothers, Punch.” Continue reading A Literary Nightmare (or “Punch, Brothers, Punch”)