Art and poetry create a space where we can focus on our feelings — it does not answer questions or set agendas, but creates space — space to laugh, to mourn, and to wonder who and how and why we are. (Marcheschi)
JANELLE ELISE
Hey, this is BessieJune again, and today I wanna tell you about Miz Janelle Elise. She is our Poet-in-Residence, Miz Suze says. Every day she has what she calls a Reading for all of us, when she reads either her own or someone else’s poetry. Sometimes it’s pretty interestin’, and sometimes I don’t understand it too good, but I sure like the tea and scones that Miz Janelle Elise insists that our housekeeper Matildie (I’ll tell you about her later) serves everyone. I guess everybody else does, too, ’cause they all come. And eat hearty while they’re a’listenin’.
Rumor has it that when she’s a’workin’ (that means when she’s entertainin’ gentleman customers), she makes ’em listen to poetry, too. That kinda keeps her clientele down, but I don’t think she cares much, and Miz Trixie, she’s not around any longer to give her a hard time about keepin’ her numbers up. She attracts a certain type a customer, too, kinda gentle-lookin’ sorts — I like them a lot better than the usual guys what come here, and I notice Miz Suze is most nicer to them, too.
I don’t know much about what Janelle Elise was like before she come here, as she don’t talk about it none at all. Could be some of that poetry I don’t understand has to do with it, but it’s not real clear. Pretty when it rhymes, but not too clear. When I turn on my imagination (by the way, Miz Suze has the most interestin’ name for imagination — she calls it her phoophoonikkee — isn’t that funny, it always makes me laugh) tho’, what I think is that she was real rich and somehow either lost all her money, or got kicked out by her family for some reason . . . mebbe it was all that poetry.
Why I say that is because she has the prettiest clothes, and always wears long flow-y gowns and long flow-y beads, too. She tinkles and clinks, and it makes a nice kinda accompaniment to her Readings. Exceptin’ after the scones and tea are all gone, it makes ya kinda sleepy. I like to sit by AutumnGlory or Miz Suze ’cause they’ll poke me if I nod off. And I wanna be polite. I like Miz Janelle Elise.
I guess I’m not doin’ too good a job of tellin’ about Miz Janelle Elise ’cause I don’t understand her too good. I think she must be what Miz Suze calls a philosopher. AutumnGlory just laughs and says still waters run deep. Me, I think maybe that one poem she reads sometimes called The Highwayman might tell a lot of her own story, especially the part in the poem when the innkeeper’s daughter Bess gets locked up by her family when all she wanted was to go off with her feller, even if he was a crook — how he told her Look for me by moonlight, Watch for me by moonlight, I’ll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way — and then when he did come, that Bess in the poem up and killed herself to warn him they was a’layin’ a trap for him. Miz Janelle Elise didn’t actually kill herself, but I wonder now if a part of her ain’t dead — and when I hear those words about the landlord’s black-eyed daughter, Bess, the landlord’s daughter, plaiting a dark red love-knot into her hair, it gives me a shiver all over.
Mebbe Miz Janelle Elise is what they call a tortured soul (another phrase I adopted from one of AutumnGlory’s books). I do know she kinda makes me think that when Miz Suze, kinda sad-and-gentle-like, says that all the girls are here because of their past, that it’s probably true.
But then I’m here because of my past, too, so I guess I fit in just right.