Page 392
By Jack Joseph Smith
By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
Kelly reads, sees stars through `HER roof`, moves through streams and lowlands, reaches toward God, faces the devil's snap, and remains unafraid among dead books.
The scan-reviewed handwritten additions make the page more intimate and defiant. `HER roof` and `And BEEN loved EVEN MORE` turn Kelly's reading room into a protected imaginative space, while the inserted `she` clarifies the spiritual action without losing the rough manuscript feel.
'Kelly' is an intimate, defiant portrait of a girl whose reading room is a protected imaginative space. 'Kelly reads a book in her room,' 'sees stars right through / HER roof,' and 'knows very well who her immagionatioming is.' She crosses an inward geography - 'Weary of rivers still crossing streams,' 'Deep in inclave and bewildered / before the sea' - where 'far away is right next to her.' The spiritual turn is bleak but unfrightening: when she 'reaches out for God, / as all adventures finally must; / it is only the devil that snaps,' yet 'she is not afraid,' knowing 'a thousand books before her / have gone to their grave / And BEEN loved EVEN MORE.' Source spelling and the emphatic handwritten capitals are preserved.