Lest You Forget is a visit to the South, to the past century, and in both the poetry and in the book itself, to the quality of years past. It is a book of beautiful binding with gold embossing, fine paper, and supurb production. It is hard-bound in deep forest green with a wide burgundy pure silk ribbon as a marker. It is also a sort of old-fashioned picture album. On the inside front and back covers, photographs of Violet Witherspoon and John Chambers have been placed by hand in black photo album corners. The pictures can be lifted out. For both its literary content and its appearance, Lest You Forget needs to be included in your library. It is a book for anyone who loves traditional poetry, Victorian style, and the South. The price is $21 plus shipping. To order, call us at 404/367-1991 or click the leaf to the right.

 
 

 
 

There are 33 poems in all. They are brief, lyric, and Victorian in style.

Two, for example, are sonnets. One is strict Elizabethan form and begins

No debt is owed a smile, however warm,
that brightened hearthstone cold on gray-branched day...

The other is a variation of the Italian sonnet form, and it begins

When death reels in life's spool of silken twine,
When suns are dark, yet lamps are let no more...

Another poem is in ballad form. Unlike most of the poems, which don't have titles, this one does. It is "The Seduction," and it follows true to its theme, beginning

The phantom made his gracious bow by night,
Smiling smiles that lit a light
Within me; my thoughts flew flights
I never dreamed existed till that sight.

Overall, the poems picture the emotions of any relationship.

They also carry a theme of timelessness, of knowing one person in an earlier time and coming together again after death. The last poem, for example, "Lest You Forget," is addressed to two people of the future who are looking at the graves of Violet and John. It asks them if the graves they are seeing are their own.

  

Lest You Forget is both a story and a collection of poems.

The poems were written by Violet Witherspoon, a woman who lived all her life in Macon, Georgia, and died there in 1954 at the age of 81. They are dated from 1902 to 1930, and they draw a picture of her lifelong relationship with a man named John Chambers.

The book outlines what few details there are about Violet and John and their relationship. There are also photographs of them, of the house where Violet lived, and a few of the people and places in their lives.

Although the information existing is sketchy, the poetry brings their relationship alive. It is lyrical and traditional, and it reflects the Victorian time as well as the Southern world in which it was written.