Newsletter of the
Society
Volume 12; November 2005
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Inside...A Bouqeut for Aunt KatherineBermuda: Katherine Anne Porter's Lost Paradise "Katherine Anne Porter's Secret," a poem by Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda On "Katherine Anne Porter's Secret" Katherine Anne Porter Society Activities at the 2004 and 2005 American Literature Association Conferences 2006 American Literature Association Conference in San Francisco Porter Activites at the University of Maryland Libraries The Year's Work on Katherine Anne Porter: 2004 and 2005 Highpoints of the Year at Katherine Anne Porter School Katherine Anne Porter Literary Center News Forthcoming Unrue Book Events Forthcoming KAP Postal Stamp KAP Fiction Prize at the University of Maryland
Other NewslettersVolume 1 |
A Bouquet for Aunt KatherineBy Paul Porter
[Editor's note: The following is an excerpt of a talk delivered at the conference celebrating the one hundredth birthday of Katherine Anne Porter at the University of Maryland on May 11, 1991. For full article, please contact editor]
"I have planted five orchards in three states, and now I see only one tree in bloom." This rueful observation is made by the Grandmother in Katherine Anne Porter's story, "The Source"; but it could have been made by Aunt Katherine about herself. I have no idea how many gardens she planted in her ninety years, but I do know that only one was on land she owned, and she was never in one place long enough to achieve the perfect and enduring garden she saw in her mind's eye. Her choice in flowers reflected her style in prose: graceful, formal, nothing garish, an illusion of simplicity that disguised complexity. Knowing that, you might guess that her least favorite flowers were orchids. About a corsage of cymbidiums pinned on her shoulder at a function in her honor, she told a friend, "It was horrible. All evening the nasty little thing nibbled on my ear like a carnivorous bug." She loved many flowers, but loved camellias and roses most of all. Her favorite colors were red, pink, and white. She didn't care at all for coral and orange, and she was appalled by efforts to create a black rose. Also high on her list of people she called "monkey-minded" were the breeders who created floral monsters at the expense of fragrance, for she adored the aroma of flowers. Even her perfumes were floral, which moved one Hollywood cab driver to exclaim, "Lady, you smell just like my wife's rose garden!" Delighted, she complimented him on the keenness of his nose–the cologne was White Rose from Caswell-Massey.
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