Found Poem #9/Ahead of Her Time

Found Poem #9: Ahead of Her Time

...like a lot of great writers,
Muriel Spark was actually
a bit of a monster —
a charming, appealing monster —
but a monster all the same,
willing to sacrifice
everything
for the sake of her work.

She was
a neglectful mother,
a mercurial and inconstant friend,
a bully to agents, editors and publishers.
She behaved — in short —
like any number of
male writers, including ones
much less talented than she,

but as a woman so ruthlessly and coldheartedly
in pursuit of her art,
she was a little
ahead of her time.



Source: Charles McGrath’s review of Martin Stannard’s Muriel Spark: The Biography in The New York Times Book Review, April 25, 2010.