“A single red rose” – Pen Pearson on Poet Charlotte Mew

I met British poet Charlotte Mew (1869-1928) as a Master’s candidate in search of the subject for her critical thesis. When I came across Mew’s strangely familiar poems, I should have suspected that Mew’s life would influence mine long after I defended my thesis, which I titled ‘The Erotic Female Voice of Charlotte Mew.’

Twenty years and an eight-hour flight later, I knelt in Hampstead Cemetery to place wild flowers on Mew’s grave while I chastised myself. Everything connecting my life with Mew’s had transpired as if it were fated. Thus I should have trusted that I would find her grave among a hodgepodge of headstones despite the odds against it, and I should have brought a single red rose, a motif in Mew’s poems, to properly memorialize Mew’s life and its haunting of my own.

Charlotte Mew’s journey took her through the sunset of Queen Victoria’s reign, World War I, and the dawning of a modern age, where she rose to fame in 1920s London, while my journey as a lover of Mew’s poems and a professor of creative writing at NSU led me to write ‘Bloomsbury’s Late Rose,’ a novel dramatizing Mew’s remarkable life.

I advise creative writing students to think outside the box when it comes to publishing. There are as many avenues to publication as there are writers. Begin by asking every author you meet about his or her path. When you learn about a path that resonates with you, follow it.

For instance, while I was still drafting ‘Bloomsbury’s Late Rose,’ I asked Karen Babine (‘All the Wild Hungers’) about her path, and she told me about the literary agent who found a publisher for her first book, ‘Water and What It Knows.’ When I finished my novel, I queried him. He replied and asked to read my book, and within a week, he agreed to agent my novel.

It’s just as important to be flexible. If one path leads nowhere, try another path. And keep writing and honing your craft while pursuing your publishing breakthrough.

Bloomsbury’s Late Rose, Pen Pearson’s novel about Charlotte Mew, is available in paperback and ebook at Amazon, B&N, all over the web, and at your favorite local bookstore. This piece first appeared on the NSU website.