photo of Ann in the Amazon, holding monkey, 25' anaconda caged in back! on News/Events page… Take a look…
The Poet’s Corner – XIX, October 14, 2020
with Eva Poole-Gilson
Here is my friend Ann Purcell’s response to Poet’s Corner XVIII. The reader was asked about “secret places” from childhood.
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“i've long thought of special places i played as a child, with great fondness.
i remembered my irish grandmother always talking to me about the Thunnywahn, which was a name of the place where she played as a child. I think i tried to look up the word but couldn't find anything on it - so it might be one that the children just made up.
i loved a creek across the street from our apartment, i'd run home from school, change clothes, meet a girlfriend and we'd go crawfishing in that creek, till before dark.
and woods in back of the apartment building
and there were 3 bushes that came together with an opening and i'd stage and write puppet plays for the other children (and i think charge them..ha..ha...) , i'm always good - still am - at finding kind sanctuaries now it's a small charming churchyard at the church at the end of my block!!!”....Ann
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Ann Purcell is a painter who has a solo show opening tomorrow at the Berry Campbell Gallery in New York. “This is a body of ongoing work of over 96 paintings, painted over 40 years (begun when I was four...ha..ha). I am especially proud of this series. The gallery is open, high covid safety mon- sat 10-6. If you can't come to new york, it's online courtesy of my gallerist. Here's hoping this will give you some serene downtime in your day. Wishing you and yours calm and safety, Fondly, Ann
Wish I could be there!
Ann and I met when we both were on “artist’s retreat” in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, she from the East Coast where she grew up, me from the Midwest where I grew up. We each had an apartment and work space near the central “Jardin.” Ann had already had major shows in D.C. and New York. I had published in a few literary journals and was working on my first novel.
We hit it off in a big way, discovered we both had the same kind of zany sense of humor and love of adventure: agreed, since we both longed to see South America that we ought to go while we were “so close.”
Which we did.
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Friday, December 3, 19--, Puno, Peru
Our trip to Machu Picchu was glamorous. Really—as will be anyone’s. On the way by train we stopped at Pampaccahua—the very name filled me with anticipation. The tracks ran along a fast moving river which had washed gigantic rocks to bonesmooth. Straw huts…narrow mountain passes oozing cloud…women, babies strapped to backs, bundles of hot beans strapped to fronts; they’ll scoop out a small helping of beans for you on a scrap of paper or in your hand…
The ruins are very well-preserved (as they were never discovered by the Spanish who had a penchant for razing whatever they hadn’t raised) and stand at an altitude of eight thousand feet. They are surrounded by three peaks: Machu Picchu (the Old Mountain, 9,900 feet); Huayna Picchu (the Younger Mountain, 9,000 feet); and Unuhuayna Picchu (the Youngest Mountain). Huayna is cut with steps to its top. Too precarious a journey for me; the path was marked with a skull and crossed bones. We did, however, encounter a number of people later who’d made the climb.
Hiram Bingham from Yale U. is said to have been led up to the ruins by an Indian boy, age 11, in the year 1911. There was no road built to them until 1938. That road is a riddle of hairpin curves and climbs steeply from the River Vilcanota’s bed to the ruins’ entrance—nothing of which is visible from below.
Bingham said these ruins are that Lost City of the Incas begun in the eleventh century.
Ann and I listened to the guide for a while, followed him to the Temple of the Sun, the Temple of the Three Windows… But then, enchanted, dazed, dumbfounded, we just wandered off alone and talked to llamas happy in their high and peaceful place. And we ate cold chicken and stared at the river valleys so far below, and if I remember correctly, felt reverent.
from Eva’s South America Journal (photo above: Ann in the Amazon, holding monkey, 25'anaconda caged in back!)
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Dear Readers, Any secret place you’re now willing to reveal? Poet’s Corner would like to share your description of it in Issue XX. Please send it via my website, link below.
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