In 2014, poet Tina Barry and her husband moved from Brooklyn to High Falls, New York. She began to research the area and learned that in 1946 and 1947, the artist Marc Chagall had lived there with his partner, Virginia Haggard, and Haggard’s young daughter Jean McNeil. Barry knew who Chagall was, but who was Haggard?
The answer to that question ultimately led to Barry’s Beautiful Raft, a collection of 58 prose poems constructed as a work of fiction, including a cast of eight characters. When they moved to High Falls, Chagall was 59 and Haggard was 28. They both left spouses, and Haggard brought her daughter with her. Soon she was pregnant with Chagall’s baby, who was named David McNeil (Haggard was still married to her husband John McNeil when the baby was born).
To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.
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