First Cover of Wheels
The Sitwell Siblings are three authors who have been left to the side of the literary spotlight on modernism. The three siblings— Edith, Osbert, and Sacheverell— have missed our reading schedule and maybe that is because most of their work remained in the little magazine, Wheels. The wheel turned six cycles over four years and those six issues published some striking authors; among them were Aldous Huxley, Wilfred Owen, and Paul Selver. Edith was a major editor, but all of the Sitwell’s published work both individually and in collaboration, both creatively and analytically. The publications feature an enormous amount of work from the Sitwell. The work is both modern and arises from an interesting and inventive writing style.
The Sitwell Siblings
In the first, 1916 issue of Wheels the Sitwell Siblings were in full creative force; with boundless gusto Osbert unleashes the force of the churning wheel. His poems “The Beginning” and “The End” are the first two poems after Nancy Cunard’s poem “Wheels.” I found “The End” to capture movement through simple language and the poem had an interesting rhythm to it. The subject matter was attacked with bravery and displayed arresting images, “Like blood dried brown upon a dead man’s face” (4). The images of the poem are quite clear, yet romantically poetic. The exclusion of the Sitwell Siblings appears to be a mistake; their work is unique in the sheer ability of three siblings to publish a literary magazine and provide the core material.
THE END.
ROUND the great ruins crawl those things of slime ; —
Green ruins lichenous and scarred by moss,—
An evil lichen that proclaims world doom,
Like blood dried brown upon a dead man’s face.
And nothing moves save those monstrosities
Armoured and grey and of a monster size.
But now, a thing passed through the cloying air
With flap and clatter of its scaly wings—
As if the whole world echoed from some storm.
One scarce could see it in this dim green light
Till suddenly it swooped and made a dart
And swept away one of those things of slime,
Just as a hawk might sweep upon its prey.
Then there were horrid noises, cries of pain
Which only made one feel a deep disgust.
It seems as if the light grows dimmer yet—
No radiance from the dreadful green above,
Only a lustrous light or iridescence
As if from off a carrion-fly,—surrounds
That vegetation which is never touched
By any breeze. The air is thick and brings
The tainted subtle sweetness of decay.—
Where, yonder, lies the noisome river-course,
There shows a faintly phosphorescent glow.—
Long writhing bodies fall and twist and rise,
And one can hear them playing in the mud.
Upon the ruined walls there gleam and shine
The track of those grey vast monstrosities—
As some gigantic snail had crawled along.
All round the shining bushes waver lines
Suggesting shadows, slight and grey, but full
Of that which makes one nigh to dead with fear.
Watch how those awful shadows culminate
And dance in one long wish to hurt the world.
A world that now is past all agony !
1916