>There's no shortage of major woman poets to teach. What are the
>implications of my teaching a woman poet they may never have heard of?
>
>There are also lots of other poets I don't teach unless forced to, but
>Plath was the subject at hand.
>
>If I were to teach a poet whose work I really don't like I doubt that I'd
>be doing the poet a favor, and my attitude, even if it only came across
>subliminally, might make it harder for my students to read that poet on
>their own or in later classes.
Thus Mark Weiss. On the whole I agree, but although not a big fan of Plath,
I have taught her work, nut alongside other writers (there are so many
women writers whose poetry I love & admire, I have no trouble finding more
than enough to present) whose work lets hers demonstrate its uniqueness (&
theirs) often, & perhaps meant to, which suggests precisely the problem
Mark points to above, at her expense (in my mind, but then maybe not in the
students'). But there's more to this than just not liking a poet & not
teaching him or her. A course is short, the life of even 20th century
poetry long so to speak: there's just too much out there, & often, alas, we
must use an anthology, at least for introductory courses. One can 'teach'
the poets one likes, & let the students find some of the others in the
anthology on their own, or for essays.
As to how you might influence your students, I am reminded of an essay
attacking a Canadian peot I admire (but many might not): Erin Mouré. The
writer shows how he 'taught' one of her poems & how all his students came
to the conclusion, without any help from him (his absolute contempt for her
work & her approach is clear throughout the piece) that she couldn't write
her way out of a paper bag, & to wonder how she managed to get so many
books published & accepted etc. Oh yeah, he goes out of his way in the
essay to assure us that he's not anti-feminist, but of 16 essays in his
book, there are only 3 on women & all are attacks. Duh.
So we certainly have to be careful.
Douglas Barbour
Department of English
University of Alberta
Edmonton Alberta Canada T6G 2E5
(h) [780] 436 3320 (b) [780] 492 0521
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/dbhome.htm
Reserved books. Reserved land. Reserved flight.
And still property is theft.
Phyllis Webb
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
|