Message from rflores

[Anonymous]

Droston,

one more thing I remebered you could use in your lessons for Ties that Bind, Ties that Break is Ruth Fainlight's "Flower Feet". This is a great poem students can analyze and discuss before or after the novel.

Ruth Fainlight
"Flower Feet"
(SILK SHOES IN THE WHITWORTH ART GALLERY,
MANCHESTER, ENGLAND)
Real women's feet wore these objects
that look like toys or spectacle cases stitched
from bands of coral, jade, and apricot silk
embroidered with twined sprays of flowers.
Those hearts, tongues, crescents, and disks, leather
shapes an inch across, are the soles of shoes
no wider or longer than the span of my ankle.
If the feet had been cut off and the raw stumps
thrust inside the openings, surely
it could not hurt more than broken toes, twisted
back and bandaged tight. An old woman,
leaning on a cane outside her door
in a Chinese village, smiled to tell how
she fought and cried, how when she stood on points
of pain that gnawed like fire, nurse and mother
praised her tottering walk on flower feet.
Her friends nodded, glad the times had changed.
Otherwise, they would have crippled their daughters.

Hope this helps![Edit by="rflores on Jul 30, 11:07:44 AM"][/Edit]