Constance urdang biography

This brief tale of three women travelers captures the many aspects of far-flung adventures: the anticipation, the surprises, the romance, and the truth that no matter where we go, we take ourselves with us

Each line of this poem is so precise and evocative — innocent valor, shivering stars, wifely tears — to tell a story that’s both tender and brazen.

It’s easy to imagine these women (and their modern counterparts) packing their bags to venture into the delicious unknown with an umbrella and a handkerchief.

The Luggage — Constance Urdang

• Travel is a vanishing act
• Only to those who are left behind.
• What the traveler knows
• Is that he accompanies himself,
• Unwieldy baggage that can’t be checked,
• Stolen, or lost, or mistaken.
• So one took, past outposts of empire,
• ‘Calmly as if in the British Museum,’
• Not only her Victorian skirts,
• Starched shirtwaists, and umbrella, but her fa