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True, Charis Southwell (born Charis Greenwood) was my oldest sister, but that makes no difference. She was a great twentieth century American poet. Had she been given a decade or two more to live, I am convinced the world would have known it too. Perhaps it yet will. As I grew up, I was aware that she was an accomplished scholar, artist, and poet, and that her work had earned her recognition at school, but I did not realize just how good her poetry could be until after her death at the age of just 29. Her husband, Bill Southwell, had some of her work published, and copies of the little blue volume were doled out to members of the family in lots of half a dozen or more. In time, I grieved my way through her poems, finding myself at times transported into a world I had almost forgotten ever existed, as I relived people and places I also had known in my childhood. I no longer bother fighting back the tears. There was another, darker world though. Charis lived and loved, but in my memory, always with a shadowy companion nearby, never allowing her to stray far from its reach. To her, death was to be feared, not respected. Death was a foe she would gladly have negotiated with for a few more years, and yet she knew it was powerless to destroy her spirit. For frightened as she was, she had an indomitable faith in the ultimate goodness of the creator, and she made it evident by her love for those around her. I was just one of many she helped save. Lovers of poetry are not as common as they once were -- perhaps because it is much harder to love the poetry of today -- alliterated, arrhythmic, atonal lists of words and phrases, elevated more for social impact than beauty, form, or grace. Yet over the years since her death, I have crossed paths with a few, and some are now owners of the copies of her collection I had intended for my children. I now have just three left. The bindings are cracked and shedding, and one, having been attacked years ago by a pair of blunt scissors in the hands of a three year old, suffers a number of geometric voids in its yellowing pages. Realizing there are still many more lovers of poetry in the world I asked Bill Southwell for permission to republish her book on the World Wide Web. He did not hesitate in granting my request. There are more works yet to be published and re-published. More poems certainly, at least one play, chidrens' stories, paintings, drawings, and letters which I hope, in time, will grace these pages. In the meantime, enjoy her poetry, browse through her photos, and get to know this very special sister of mine.
R.F. Greenwood
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