THE MAD WOMAN OF PUNNET’S TOWN

This morning, I stumbled across this poem in my files and thought that we Punnett women should start a tradition of being photographed as so vividly described by L.A.G. Strong!  Really!  I have no such photos but am posting a few Punnett women below anyway, and am sending out a call for pics of wonderfully mad Punnett women - I celebrate our vitality and joy!

THE MAD WOMAN OF PUNNET’S TOWN

A-swell within her billowed skirts

     Like a great ship with sails unfurled,

The mad woman goes gallantly

     Upon the ridges of her world.

With eagle nose and wisps of grey

       She strides upon the westward hills,

Swings her umbrella joyously

       And waves it to the waving mills.

Talking and chuckling as she goes,

        Indifferent both to sun and rain,

With all that merry company:

         The singing children of her brain.

L.A.G. Strong

Leonard Alfred George Strong (1896-17 August 1958) was an English writer, born in Plymouth of a half-Irish father and Irish mother, and was educated at Brighton College and at Wadham College, Oxford (Open Classical Scholar) where he came under the influence of W. B. Yeats. Some of his poems were set to music by Arthur Bliss, as was this one.
Per “Biography” Great Authors of World Literature, Critical Edition Ed. Frank Northen Magill, “Outstanding among his poems are “An Old Woman, Outside the Abbey Theatre,” which is epigrammatically ironic in a manner worthy of William Butler Yeats, and “The Mad Woman of Punnet’s Town,” which depicts vitality and joy.”

from top, left to right…
Rachael Punnett, daughter of Malcolm Punnett; Brenda Punnett.
Maureen Kirkwood, daughter of Thelma Punnett (1940-1949), older sister of Jack, Langley, Duncan and Chris.
Punnett girls – Zen (daughter of Malcolm), Gemma (daughter of Mark), Kate and Sophie (daughters of Paddy).

One love! Lisbie x