1:3 Fall-Winter 1946

TENNESSEE WILLIAMS

A Liturgy of Roses

When this poem by Tennessee Williams appeared in the Summer 1946 issue, Williams had recently found acclaim as a playwright: the 1945 production of The Glass Menagerie was his first Broadway success. But he had also achieved some notice as a poet in 1944, when he had been featured in the third edition of the New Directions series, Five Young American Poets. “A Liturgy of Roses” was also the working title for his play The Rose Tattoo, a Dionysian farce, and the poem takes up that play’s investigation of links between religion and sexuality; both works no doubt also allude to Williams’s sister, Rose, a figure of naiveté for the writer because she had been lobotomized. The poem was revised subsequent to its publication in Chicago Review and appeared in his collection, Androgyne, Mon Amour (1977); the revisions have been incorporated into the version presented here.

[DN, 1996]

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