Sorry to join in without fully knowing the context. (I've been away.) But
might not Rich have been referring to the fact that some of ED's poems are
actually written from a masculine point of view (eg, she talks somewhere
about what she felt or did 'when a boy')?
Best wishes,
Matthew Francis
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-----Original Message-----
From: Andrew Jackson <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: 10 July 2000 00:43
Subject: The female voice cometh
>Drat! Did it again. Take #2.
>
>
>Hi Helen,
>
>So . . . content, then?
>
>Where does that leave women writers who make no self-
>referential declarations of gender within their work? If this
>is not the defining issue, what is?
>
>I'm still no wiser as to why Rich assigned Dickinson a
>'masculine voice', particularly since Dickinson's voice was
>so uniquely unlike any other poetries of that time. Basically
>I'm wondering what Rich decided was *missing* in Dickinson's
>work, or insufficiently delineated, in order to disqualify it.
>
>And I'm wondering whether modern women writers can also
>be divided, according to Rich's criteria, into female voice and
>male voice (which seems absurdly reductionist . . . .)
>
>
>Andy
>
>
>
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