Countrywomen

By Katherine Mansfield 1888–1923 Katherine Mansfield

These be two

Country women.

What a size!

Great big arms

And round red faces;

Big substantial

Sit down places;

Great big bosoms firm as cheese

Bursting through their country jackets;

Wide big laps

And sturdy knees;

Hands outspread,

Round and rosy,

Hands to hold

A country posy

Or a baby or a lamb—

And such eyes!

Stupid, shifty, small and sly

Peeping through a slit of sty,

Squinting through their neighbours’ plackets.

Biography

Even before she died at the age of thirty-four Katherine Mansfield had achieved a reputation as one of the most talented writers of the modern short story in English. From 1910 publications in periodicals like the New Age through the five volumes of stories published before her death, Mansfield was recognized as innovative, accessible, and psychologically acute, one of the pioneers of the avant-garde in the creation of the short . . .

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