THE DAYS OF MARS: A Memoir, 1940-1946

Memory is not merely a matter of words. It is sights, sounds, impressions distinct but not continuous, an isolated word with a blank on either side of it."" Retrieved here, marginally, minimally, are those impressions of Bryher's war after she left her adopted home at Montreux to join friends and her cousin Hilda, H. D., in London and share with them the bombings, the dust, the rations and restrictions -- about all you'll find here -- Bryher is a casual stoic. More concerned is she with protecting the continuity of art and functioning, with the Sitwells, as its ""servitors"" -- there are stays with them and on occasion an effusively lyrical line such as ""a circlet of golden moments uncovered from a temple's dust""; on the whole Bryher's sensibility and style is neoclassically chaste. The material herein is limited -- a poetry reading here, her study of Persian as the most ""useless"" thing she can do to pass the time, trips to Cornwall, Scotland, etc. -- all recollected in elegiac and most sell-effacing tranquility.