While in Vermont I had the chance to meet two of my sister’s friends, Merrill Leffler and Ann Slayton. Merrill runs a small publishing company, Dryad Press, and his wife Ann is, among other things, a poet. Merrill showed me several of the chapbooks and prose pieces he’s published and talked about why he’d chosen various titles. Especially interesting is They’ll Have to Catch Me First about a woman who was a prisoner at Mechelen during WWII and “assigned to the painters’ workshop, she painted numbers that prisoners wore around their necks, linen armbands for other prisoner-works, and signs. During her year-and-a-half of imprisonment, Nazi officers had her do portrait paintings of themselves and mistresses — at the same time, she and other artists surreptitiously drew and painted scenes of camp life. After liberation by the Allies, Mrs. Awret was able to rescue what was left of her own artwork.” The book is a memoir that includes the artwork of various prisoners as well as interviews and with former prisoners.
On the drive home from Vermont, my sister & I read Ann’s poetry aloud, a lovely way to pass the time!