Prattling of drabs in primary color.
An hermaphrodite bearing children.
Hetty Cattell Parker, “Sensorial Sketches of Women” (1920) : entire below
I
Dear Disturber,
She always has something to say.
But she always says it.
A night bird,
Singing so constantly!
II
Crimson couch of maternity,
With a rose on the pillow.
Hard, tawny hands,
Clutching at the blare of children’s voices.
Saffron smiles.
III
Indian reds
Luxuriating.
Trifles asleep in mammoths.
Freedom in pretty durance.
Frail, pink love
And the wish for superiority.
All pictured in granite.
IV
Yellow.
The felling of oil and pulpiness.
Purling.
Sensuousness.
Fruition, quieted.
V
Life whispering.
Tints.
A voice that is but breathing.
Veils.
Apeeping through the shutters at the festival.
VI
Nervously romantic.
Nervously important.
A face that is only disturbed.
Ruffles in a cyclone.
Confetti.
VII
Charivari.
Flash.
Black and white.
Flittering. Skylarking.
Prattling of drabs in primary color.
An hermaphrodite bearing children.
Hetty Cattell Parker.
transcription from a scan-and-delivered document
Hetty Cattell Parker, “Sensorial Sketches of Women” in The Pagan (April-May 1920) : 9-10
Two Pagan anthologies were published prior to the publication of Cattell’s “Sensorial Sketches of Women” and so, of course, do not include it —
A Pagan anthology, composed of poems by contributors to the Pagan magazine (1918)
U British Columbia copy/scan (via archive.org) : link, and
A second Pagan anthology containing poems that have appeared in the Pagan magazine (1919)
U British Columbia copy/scan (via archive.org) : link
See Victoria Kingham. “The Pagan, Joseph Kling, and American Salon Socialism.” The Journal of Modern Periodical Studies 1:1 (2010) : 1-37
jstor : link (accessed 16 March 2024).
which situates The Pagan vis-a-vis The Masses, The Seven Arts and other literary/cultural magazines of the time. I have not (yet) found other discussion of The Pagan.
Hetty Cattell Parker (1887-1976), who also wrote as Hetty Cattell and (from 1925) Hettie Fithian Cattell, was an energetic newspaper reporter and feature writer, whose writings and life provide interesting threads through her time.
A directory (and transcriptions of some of) her writings : 2573a;
timeline and some materials about her career and life : 2573b.
I came across Cattell in A. C. Haeselbarth’s profiles of “American Women of the Press” —
The woman who would succeed must like writing, bristle with ideas, uphold a literary standard and have dogged determination, declares Miss Hetty Cattell, of the Rocky Mountain News
(November 29, 1913) : 460 : link
Another of these asfaltics pages is devoted to those profiled writers and editors : 2568