Rebecca: Everyone creates introjects, and we all constantly are in dialogue
with the introjections of ourselves in those we know.  Whoever I'm involved
with has expectations based on fantasy, and the other way, too, and when
they're not met we deal with the fallout. It's not an evil, it's simply one
of the limitations of being human.

That straight men often, and at some periods in some societies
traditionally, image their desires as female should be no surprise and,
absent repression, no problem. It's the repression, not the fantasy, that's
the problem--how Dante related to his wife is in this regard a lot more
important than the imaginative use he made of Beatrice. Or, to put it
another way, one can conceivably cleanse a society of repression of women.
As to cleansing men of imagining their longing as female, lots of luck.

The question may really be, as I think your remarks suggest, why women
don't, if they don't, personify their own longings.  I doubt it's because
women are more firmly emotionally grounded in reality, otherwise we
wouldn't have all those bandit kings on the covers of romance novels.

As to Stern, if he says it he must be right.

All desires are ultimately unattainable. Leaves a lot of space for the
imagination.

Mark

At 10:33 PM 5/4/2003 -0400, you wrote:
>Well, to answer Robin's comment, I am reminded of a lecture
>by the American poet, Gerald Stern, in which the point, he said
>was to "never fuck the Muse." What he didn't say was the
>implication that this was just the point, i.e. the desire. So hence, I think,
>the Muse as introjection of one's own unattainable or undesirable
>desire. But it is very much an introjection of male desire,
>however attainable, or not,  it may  be.
>
>Whereas, Alison's poem, I think
>suggests the viewpoint of the other, who insists upon her existence
>in some other sense than the desire that another may use
>to circumvent or circumscribe that existence. For instance,
>in these terms, it is not so much that the muse unveils herself,
>as that she dresses herself, takes on the various guises of being.
>
>It is not merely
>training that makes one view the muse as an introjection, but
>gender.
>
>I don't think that the ideal muse for a heterosexual woman would
>be male, though I have known at least one heterosexual woman
>poet who has tried to write the poem that would seem to suit
>this, it has never seemed to work.
>
>The muse, like mother, is an idea that is deeply rooted in male
>desire, introjection and all, for women, the desire that their materia
>serve one's male inspiration. Women poets have no muse, though
>they must invariably reply to the concept, even to the concept of
>introjection.
>
>Best,
>
>Rebecca
>
>Rebecca Seiferle
>www.thedrunkenboat.com
>
>
>-------Original Message-------
>From: Mark Weiss <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: 05/04/03 09:01 PM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: Sparrow&Spider, Poem Six
>
> >
> > My training being what it is, I think of the muse as an introject,
> which ishow I've always experienced (usually) her). Occasionally it's actually
>been
>someone I've known in the various ways, but always her appearance in my
>consciousness has been unbidden and a surprise. I think the point is
>longing, and I haven't found that something like fulfillment does much to
>quench it. Even those we know best retain an element of mystery, at times
>more at times less, as no one is finally knowable.
>
>Mark
>
>
>At 12:43 AM 5/5/2003 +0100, you wrote:
> > > >                 THE MUSE COMPLAINS
> > > >
> > >
> > > NUDE WITH MIRROR
> > > (OR: THE MUSE _REALLY_ COMPLAINS)
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > He could no more perceive her than touch his own horizon
> > > retreating before him over cliffs of reason,
> > > and she knew this and became bitter.
> >
> >I like this, Alison -- is there a touch of Robert Graves somewhere in the
> >background?
> >
> >But here's a curious synchronicity -- about an hour before I read this
> >(+before+, honest!), I finished the first draft of a poem (which I'm
>about
> >to type up and see what it's like) called "Mirror Eyes".  The figure in
>that
> >poem (the Sparrow in "The Sparrow and the Spider" sequence) is part-muse,
> >part-woman poet.  But much of the imagery turns on nakedness and mirrors.
>  A
> >curious and coincident parallel.
> >
> >I once became fascinated by the concept of Inaccessible Muses -- Laura,
> >Beatrice, Shakespeare's Young Man, Billy Budd, Marvell's trees, dead
>wives
> >[Henry King, Donne and Milton in single sonnets, Hardy, Peter Porter,
> >Douglas Dunn]  -- figures which, while human (well, you could argue that
> >around Marvell's trees, I suppose) are inaccesible, for various reasons,
>as
> >"actual" sexual partners.
> >
> >I mentioned this to my ex-boss, Marion Shaw, once, suggesting that in
>these
> >terms, possibly the ideal muse-figure for a heterosexual male poet would
>be
> >a lesbian girl, and Marion promptly sent me an email pointing out, in
>that
> >case, the ideal muse-figure for a heterosexual woman poet would be a gay
> >man.  Made perfect sense to me.
> >
> >Robin
> >