This selection of poems represents a dialogue with the creative works and life of L.M. Montgomery.
A Lovely View
“I have a great big room … commanding a lovely view of the bay.”
“There seemed to be an abundance—not of color but of the spirit of color.”1
The arched window
frames the silent bay,
lacy curtains a breath
in this stillness
where eyes and hearts and souls
have sought to see
Maud’s lovely view,
the spirit of shifting hues
in fields and waters,
the reflection of ourselves
in the old panes
and her words.
The Light in the Window
Anne’s window frames the lamp’s reflected glow
and each one who’s ever dreamed
of seeing words made real.
The Good Stars2
Spirit
She weaves her dreams
of home, a bosom friend,
what might await around the bend,
hope in mistake-free days,
finds wealth in silver seas agleam
and awe in the White Way.
She lives daydreams.
Fire
Her temper flares
at injustice and slights,
and some internal spark ignites.
A fiercely loyal friend—
cracked slates and ridgepole walking dares—
a spirit that defends
honour and hair.
Dew
Her inner light—
elusive as sea’s hues
and dryads’ footprints in the dew,
the laughter of the brook,
and fireflies dancing in the night—
shines when her bright eyes look
with kindred sight.
Benediction
A Golden Shovel Poem after L.M. Montgomery’s “Air Castles”3
Kindred spirits, may you always see marble halls in
cherry trees, feel peace as you follow my
words, tread a path beneath skies clear and fair;
may you build your own blue castle,
and feel the sparkling flash of
inspiration, know the joy of recognition, sense the
hint of sweet narcissus on the air.
About the Author: Julie A. Sellers is the author of the novel Ann of Sunflower Lane (Meadowlark Press, 2022) and Kindred Verse: Poems Inspired by Anne of Green Gables (Blue Cedar Press, 2021). She has published three academic monographs on Dominican music and identity, and her creative prose and poetry have appeared in publications such as Journal of L.M. Montgomery Studies, Kansas City Voices, 105 Meadowlark Reader, Cagibi, Wanderlust, The Very Edge, Unlost, and Kansas Time + Place. Julie was the Kansas Author’s Club’s Prose Writer of the Year (2020, 2022), and the Kansas Voices Contest Overall Winner in Poetry (2022) and Prose (2017, 2019). Julie is Professor and Chair of the Department of World Languages and Cultures at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas.
- 1 Montgomery, CJ 1 (3 Aug. 1894): 231; CJ 1 (24 Jan. 1895): 258 (emphasis in original).
- 2 The Star Sevlin is a nonce form of shape poetry invented by Viola Berg. Its seven lines imitate the shape of a star.
- 3 Montgomery published “Air Castles” under a pseudonym, Joyce Cavendish, in The Story Paper (24 Sept. 1904). A copy of the poem appears opposite the copyright page in Elizabeth Rollins Epperly’s Imagining Anne: The Island Scrapbooks of L.M. Montgomery by Elizabeth Rollins Epperly (Penguin, 2008).
Works Cited
Montgomery, L.M. The Complete Journals of L.M. Montgomery: The PEI Years, 1889–1900. [CJ 1]. Edited by Mary Henley Rubio and Elizabeth Hillman Waterston, Oxford UP, 2012.
