Late Night Poetry Readings with Gram
Elizabeth Hulsman Brady (1911-1990)
Photo: Susan Hulsman Bingham (1989)
I had danced with the Ohio Ballet for two years when my back started to hurt. The timing could not have been worse! I had been losing weight, dancing like a fiend, and improving by leaps and bounds. Heinz Poll, the director of the company, started casting me in lead roles. that I absolutely could not wait to tackle. I was not going to let this stupid back ache impede my progress. Andrew, one of my dearest friends in the company, started massaging my back after rehearsals and performances and I started living on arthritis strength aspirin. Despite Andrew’s fabulous massages and all the aspirin, the pain grew steadily worse. Eventually, I was diagnosed with a stress fracture, fitted for a back brace, and sent home to my parents’ house in Maine to recuperate. The prognosis was not good. It might take up to a year for the fracture to heal.
It just so happened that my grandmother, in the throes of osteoporosis, also moved in with my parents. There we were — both of us with fractured backs, recuperating under the same roof.
Gram and I had always been close. She graduated from Radcliffe in 1934 as an English major and taught high school English for thirty years. She loved watching me dance and I loved her erudite opinions on poetry, literature, politics, life, etc.
During our convalescence, Gram and I fell into a routine. After my parents went to bed, we read poetry together — and not just any ol’ poetry! Gram had high standards and she wanted to raise my standards too. We read Dover Beach by Matthew Arnold, Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley, Morning Song of Senlin by Conrad Aiken. We read Emily Dickinson, WH Auden, Robert Frost, John Keats, and TS Eliot. Every night was a feast!
During these hours, I forgot that I was not dancing. I forgot that I was injured. Reading poetry with Gram helped me forget myself and remember myself. I was Ozymandias, that “colossal wreck” on the beach. I was the guy standing on a “swiftly tilting planet” combing my hair. I experienced a personal connection to these universal voices and somewhere beyond conscious thought, I learned that self-worth is not conditional. It cannot be diminished by injury or circumstance. Self-worth is a birthright; a sense of belonging to a vast, bittersweet mystery that great art is all about.
Once my back had healed, I returned to the Ohio Ballet eager to pick up where I left off, but it was not meant to be. Right away, I experienced the unshakeable feeling that I no longer belonged there. I was confused; it didn’t make sense to me! I started learning roles but the steps didn’t sink in. When the injuries started up again, I tearfully told Heinz that I was leaving the company. I thanked him for the best two years of my life. We hugged and I flew back to Maine. (Heinz and I remained close until the end of his life.)