A stong poem (and thanks for posting it), but, the story behind it apart,
it's more female than feminist. Which I think was my point. And which is
also why it survives its (political) motivation. I think you're right that
it's different from what Annie meant. But she'll have to tell us.
Mark
At 07:48 PM 8/29/2005, you wrote:
>On 30/8/05 9:14 AM, "Mark Weiss" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> > Example?
> >
> > At 06:46 PM 8/29/2005, you wrote:
> >> On 30/8/05 8:29 AM, "Mark Weiss" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >>
> >>> Hey, men do this too.
> >>
> >> Er - yes (what's your point?) One example I was thinking of, but didn't
> >> mention, was Catullus' parody of Cicero. But as a technique it can
> certainly
> >> be inflected to feminist purposes.
>
>I guess the easist examples to reach for are my own (and I could be talking
>about something quite different from Annie). It's been a long time since
>I've done this kind of thing. But when I was writing about childbirth &c,
>while crashing head on into what a role and stereotype and misogyny really
>meant, I used and distorted a lot of devices I pinched from traditional
>religious poetry, including as I recall gestures towards George Herbert, in
>order to give humble and banal tasks like washing nappies or caring for
>babies the kind of attentiveness I felt they deserved. This was in a
>context where persons were saying I was written off as a poet because I had
>had babies and would now be swamped forever in the stink of domesticity...
>obviously, in certain minds, the reverse of the literary or the
>experientially significant, being anerotic and boring. I wished to record
>having babies as an aesthetic experience. Part of the sequence Domestic Art
>below - it dates from around 1995, when Josh was born -
>
>Cheers
>
>A
>
>
>you open and shut like wavelidded oceans you squall your greed you offer
>your treasures
>humbly I unravel your absolute languages
>
>you sprang from love like a new god unstable and charged as weather
>a tyrant of toilsome needs I bend low and serve you
>now I feel my funeral its alleluias
>arching under my flat pulse
>holding your hard skull a helpless worship utterly dependent utterly
>separate
>
>Always under the patches and scuffs the indomitable cell the living pattern
>of you
>
>my soul is elastic my senses billow like nets to draw in your voices
>your sleep lipping my sleep my sunflower skin beaming to you
>more than the shock of reflection rather a blaze
>in a mansion of unknown rooms and my chilled
>hunger welcomed in and generously feasted at a table always my own
>
>
>
>Alison Croggon
>
>Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
>Editor, Masthead: http://masthead.net.au
>Home page: http://alisoncroggon.com
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