---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: "seiferle " <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 17:59:22 -0600

>Hi Jill,
>
>Oh, it's Rebecca, Rachel is actually my youngest sister, my father was fond of Biblical names.
>
>I agree with your sense of not being persuaded that the poem is a depiction of a Victorian relationship, but rather as a somewhat ironic, erotic address. For which I think the poem's dedication and the poem's closure are the greatest arguments. I don't think the poem is meant to take us back to some realistically depicted historical moment, but rather uses a kind of stage setting from the past in order to reach a present expression.
>
>I guess there could be some agreement in the counter argument that the poem is unconvincing in historical terms or that it tries to convince us. I suspect the difference is that this is seen as a failure by Dave and Robin who expect the poem to take them to the expected destination, the depiction of class, contemporary Britain or a comparison with Hardy or Shakespeare,etc. Where it is seen as the openness of possibility from here.
>
>Best,
>
>Rebecca
>
>www.thedrunkenboat.com
>
>
>
>
>---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
>From: Jill Jones <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: Poetryetc provides a venue for a dialogue relating to poetry and poetics <[log in to unmask]>
>Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 18:27:07 EST
>
>>I suppose I have to say something here. First, the caveat - I'm not a *huge*
>>fan of CAD either (I find some of her poems irritating and I'm not a fan
>>of 'voices' and dramatic monologue) though there are some poems I respond to.
>>
>>I tend to agree with what Alison is saying here, and Liz and Rachel (is a
>>pattern starting to emerge here, I wonder?). In particular, it has always
>>seemed to me that 'Warming her pearls' was about an erotic relationship using a
>>dominance/submission paradigm. I suppose what I'm saying is that I never for
>>once believed that the poem was about a Victorian maid and her mistress
>>(though 'mistress' is a key term in all the complexities of that word) and I'd
>>almost say I would be surprised if that was what was in CAD's mind though she
>>does write those 'voicey' poems so I could be way wrong.
>>
>>I read it as more ironic than that. I think what a lot of dykes would respond
>>to, though I'm sure such feelings must be obvious to others as well, is the
>>situation where in private there is an erotic exchange (to the cynical, it's
>>the straight girl tease) but in the public sphere the existence of the erotic
>>pull is ignored, supressed or denied, etc, etc. Do I need to really go on about
>>that?
>>
>>Of course, a poem can be 'about' many things at the same time - to state the
>>obvious - but to me the erotics of it are primary.
>>
>>Cheers,
>>Jill
>>
>>> Hi Dave - I wasn't saying that it wasn't connected to class at all: I
>>> was saying that to claim the poem is unthinkingly restating class
>>> stereotypes is to ignore the issue of female desire working within
>>> the poem: which is after all what the poem is "about". It seems to
>>> me impossible to talk about that poem without taking that into
>>> account: and yet your analysis scarcely mentions it, except
>>> dismissively as a tawdry fantasy; nor does it explore the
>>> implications of its presence, which is intended to destabilise the
>>> class assumptions implicit in the poem, as well as the hierachies of
>>> language it plays with. (Btw, if the poem doesn't use the language
>>> of the times, doesn't that suggest that it's a contemporary poem
>>> making a metaphor?)
>>>
>>> Your erasure of the presence of that desire is precisely what the
>>> poem is arguing _against_; it's an erasure which has been hallowed by
>>> centuries of Western art, which instates the possessiveness and
>>> ownership of the male eye and the passive nature of the female
>>> (nature, property &c) as exploitable owned object. I'm saying that
>>> the class thing is much more complex in the poem than you're
>>> suggesting, not that it's not there. Hierachies work along many
>>> vectors, not just one: a routine removal of the female as perceiving
>>> subject, or the sentimentalisation of the female, are deeply embedded
>>> habits in our literary canons. But all this has been talked about so
>>> much as to make me yawn saying it, and all that talk sometimes seems
>>> to make no difference to actual behaviours: the same erasures occur
>>> again and again. The latest one to ignite my ire is Michel
>>> Houllebecq's Atomised, which I think is a total fraud of a book (but
>>> you have to read the whole thing to find that out). But that's an
>>> aside.
>>>
>>> I quite agree there are much more successful literary workings of
>>> these ideas than this poem, which as Liz says, doesn't really bear
>>> the weight of these discussions very well. I too have problems with
>>> its language... in the end, I don't think it's especially
>>> interesting. But it's only fair to discuss it on its own terms, to
>>> see what it _is_ in fact doing.
>>>
>>> Best
>>>
>>> A
>>> --
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Alison Croggon
>>> Home page
>>> http://www.users.bigpond.com/acroggon/
>>>
>>> Masthead Online
>>> http://au.geocities.com/masthead_2/
>>>
>>
>