Donna

March 26
Donna Goodwin
Introduction to Donna Goodwin's Poems by Louise Zhang (dragonclaw)

At age 84, and legally blind, Donna Goodwin certainly has earned herself the royal Title of "the oldest of all". Surviving half a dozen husbands and active in lending a hand in baby-sitting the grandchildren, she is writing more poems, painting more pictures and cooking more gourmet meals. She has pursued a life-long interest in poetry and now, the crown of the family artistic achievement sits elegantly on her head. As she described in her own poem:
But she, the oldest of all
Still stands,
A disarmed Venus
With broken limbs,
Her symmetry disturbed,
Yet as daylight fades
She is transformed,
An ageless silhouette
Against the evening sky.
Her creativity both visually and linguistically has acquired a kind of Granny Glory, yet still retains her light-foot humour and youthful imagination.Her poetry as well as her paintings and collages bear witness to her dynamic power in capturing the fleeting shadows of beauty, and sitting in beautiful sunset, she now sees everything through her mind's eye, or rather, through her heart, through her enhanced sensitivity towards movement, sensation, and space, catching the shifting hues of colour sieved through her remaining vision. She has touched the solemn issues of tenacious aging, of the business of dying , of politics, of war and peace, of the dreaming of love and, above all, the graceful eternity of living.
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