The following film is based on Thomas and Beulah, the poetry book by Rita Dove, which was originally published in 1986 by Carnegie-Mellon University Press and awarded the 1987 Pultzer prize. Rita Dove served as Poet Laureate of the United States and Consultant to the Library of Congress from 1993 to 1995 and as Poet Laureate of the Commonwealth of Virginia from 2004 to 2006
Janet Kuypers
from the “Periodic Table of Poetry” series (#088, Ra)
Women got jobs
painting luminescent Radium
on clock dials —
These Radium Girls
would lick the tips
of their brushes
to get a finer point
for painting the Radium
onto these clocks,
and some of these women
even painted the Radium
on their fingernails,
or even their teeth.
But before the Great Depression
began, five Radium Girls
started getting sores,
anemia, bone fractures,
necrosis of the jaw,
and even cancer,
because when it’s ingested,
the body treats Radium
like calcium, so the Radium
went straight to their bones.
They sued the Radium
Luminous Material Corporation
for damages,
because the Radium
was doing them in.
In an effort to
avoid liability,
the Radium Luminous
Material Corporation
even tried to suggest
that the Radium Girls
actually had syphilis.
Really.
That’s what they said.
So although the corporation
was very careful
to not expose themselves
to Radium,
they apparently didn’t have
the same concern
for their employees.
So, the Radium Girls
may now be known
for bringing on labor laws,
but scientists,
five years after
the cases were settled,
could still measure Radium
in the exhaling
of one of the painting employees.
I wonder if there was enough
Radium on their breath
to give these Radium Girls
a radioactive glow,
because at one point,
Radium was even added
to toothpastes and hair creams
because people believed
Radium had curative powers.
Imagine going to a spa
with Radium-rich water,
because if you tell
anything to people
in just the right way,
you’ll be amazed
at what people will believe.
John Berryman 1914-72 was a major figure in American poetry in the second half of the 20th century and was considered a key figure in the Confessional School of Poetry, his best known work is Dream Songs.
Professional performance artist Janet Kuypers (http://www.janetkuypers.com) is a writer, photographer and professional singer and published, editing 2 literary magazines while running Scars Publications (http://scars.tv), publishing magazines, books & CDs. She has 80+ books published (poetry, prose, novels, art), sung in 3 bands, and her CD releases (40+ in 2010) appear at iTunes & other online vendors. She ran an Internet radio station from 2005-2009, & now hosts a weekly poetry open mic in Chicago(http://www.chaoticarts.org/thecafe), with weekly Podcasts.
Janet Kuypers
from the “Periodic Table of Poetry” series (෧, Pr)
with elements of the poems “a Match” and “Rings Like Gravestones”
10/15/13
“I once set fire to my fingernail.
I wanted my finger to be a
human candle.”
She dropped another match into her glass.
The flame sizzled
in the drops of drink at the bottom.
In a corner booth, in this small club
the flame she aroused looked like
any other table light.
But if you looked too closely,
the light would scorch your soul,
would burn your eyes hollow.
That little piece of energy she held
could be so intense
that you needed that Praseodymium
in your eye glasses
just to look for another second.
The flame she aroused
looked like any other light,
but she knew she was destined
for the big screen,
complete with studio lighting
and projector lights
from the motion picture industry
broadcasting her to the world
through arc lights.
So she struck another match
at the side of the box.
Six or seven lay on the cocktail napkin,
ten more at the bottom of the glass.
She’d watch the reflection
of the gemstones in rings
across her fingertips
reflecting that flame.
The yellow-green cubic zirconia
on each of her fingers
bounced the light of the flame
in thousands of directions.
She likes gemstones
on her rings, she doesn’t bother
with big earrings
or expensive necklaces —
she looks at her hands
because she likes rings;
she can’t help it.
A few of those peridot-inspired stones
were gifts from a loved one,
because they knew they were dying soon.
So she becomes the only one
treating these rings live gravestones,
even when no one has even died yet.
And the person that gave her these rings,
she knows they want to be cremated.
Just then you could see the flame
dancing at her fingertip.
She shook the match. She dropped it in her glass.
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