Poetry Postcard 8

One of the postcards donated to my antique postcard project featured an old friend.

Lucie meets Mrs. Tiggy Winkle
in one of Beatrix Potter's books.

"The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle" was published in 1905. The book was written for Lucie Carr, a young friend of Beatrix Potter's.

As a child, I loved books by British authors and stories set in rural England. My mother, who was born near Sherwood Forest, read Potter's stories to us. (Family myth says I knew "The Tale of Peter Rabbit" by heart and would not allow my tired mother to skip even one word at bedtime.) 

These stories and the poems of Robert Louis Stevenson made me feel closer to my English grandmother, whom we could only visit once each year.

Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle sings a little song
as she works on the animals' laundry:

Lily-white and clean, oh!

With little frills between, oh!

Smooth and hot – red rusty spot

Never here be seen, oh!

My daughter and I watched a video of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle's story together before I got busy writing the poem.

Part two of the video is here. As my friends know, all it takes is a pan-shot of the English countryside and my eyes start welling up.

Soon, I was taking a walk with Ms. Potter down her (my memory) lane.

Pastoral with Hedgehog

I could imagine meeting
a prickly laundress on a walk
or picnic in the high grass
my English grandmother with her
basket of fizzy lemonade and pork rolls
cloth serviettes my brothers and I
searching for clay pigeons broken
on the hill where our uncles
practiced shooting and every rabbit
ducking into its hole was Alice’s
every hedgehog might be
Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle who was
like my grandmother her cups of tea
and foxgloves curlered hair
in a kerchief I could believe
almost anything we were so removed
from our other ordinary life

by Laura Shovan

Postcard information: “BEATRIX POTTER (1886-1942) FROM THE TALE OF MRS. TIGGY-WINKLE, 1905.” DARLING & COMPANY POSTCARD

From Beatrix Potter, I moved on to British children's and fantasy authors C.S. Lewis and Susan Cooper.

I still love British children's, YA and fantasy authors. My daughter  is going through a huge Eva Ibbotson phase at the moment and we both love Diana Wynne Jones (and the adaptations of her books by Studio Ghibli). 

Diana Wynne Jones' novel was adapted
by master-animator Hayao Miyazaki.

In contemporary children's fiction, I love Hilary McKay's books. Highly recommended are Dog Friday (middle grade) and the Casson Family series (young YA).