Hello, Poetry Friend
Welcome back to my occasional series, sharing poems inspired by reading and rereading Sigrid Undset’s Kristin Lavransdatter.
Eline
Eline is complicated. She is the mother of two children with Erlend, Orm and Margret, though she was married to someone else. She and Kristin are both Erlend’s mistresses, and it’s unclear whether he’s seeing them both at the same time. (Probably. C’mon, it’s Erlend.) Eline comes to Haugen to kill Kristin or Erlend or frankly anyone, but she is the one who ends up slain by her own knife. Following her death, she haunts Kristin at her wedding.
Not enough, in my opinion. As the story unfolds, Kristin is tormented by guilt for her fling with Erlend and how it affected her father, Lavrans, but she doesn’t seem to rue enough over being an accomplice to the murder of a mother and child (Eline is pregnant).
In my poem I wanted to play with the fact that the cross belonging to Lavrans — which he gives to Kristin, and which she does not part with until she is on her deathbed — contains a scrap of a relic from St. Eline. I don’t think Sigrid Undset would allow such a glaring coincidence of names in her epic. This doubling is surely intentional.
The Eline we know is not a saint, but I don’t dislike her. I can’t. She is a woman acquainted with the night who never found her way to day.
This poem originally appeared at Project Redux.
Acquainted with Eline after Robert Frost’s “Acquainted with the Night” I was a woman. I am a martyr. My shroud held tight inside her cross. I did not come to Haugen to barter. No saint: I am an albatross. My splendid body, he used, no longer wants. My death, not hers. My children, her loss. On her wedding day I came to haunt. Cast off the stones they laid me under. I knew the signs: her pale face gaunt. After that is it any wonder my big, hard eyes grew only darker, Fastened on her, pulled her under. The way of a mistress is so much harder. I was a woman. I am a martyr. – Megan Willome
Poetry Journal
Read the poem about Eline. Jot down what you notice, what you like, what you don’t, what questions you have, and at least one way in which the poem speaks to you.
Sometimes using a classic poem can provide inspiration for yours. Friends, Frost’s “Acquainted with the Night” is much more challenging, structure-wise, than I’d given it credit for until I tried to emulate it. What poem might help you better write yours?
Have you tried poeming a character from a book?
Try writing a poem based on another poem. If you like, email me what you write.
Happy poeming!
Megan
Thank you for helping me see Eline in a more nuanced and complicated and loving way.