Anytime I'm told I'm not who I think I am my sense of reality is questioned,
my metaphysics. I usually feel tampered with, as a matter of fact; I have to
work to get myself back. Of course women's identities -- sense of identity --
have in many cultures been defined from birth anyway so there is no gap
between what one's told one is and the reaction you speak of. (I've had the
pleasure of being fucked over by three cultures at this point; I'd like to say
that rather than being tolerant of other cultures in the multicultural way, I
could do without cultures altogether.) The real point is that politics, which
isn't just a government but also social pressure, and isn't just the pressure
of the impersonal but of one's dearest friends, is bound up with metaphysics
since it constantly seeks to define what's real, who one is, and what one owes
to it. Poetry tries to free the metaphysical from social coercion but I find
it hard to do this without defining the coercion -- it seems to me necessary
to do a great deal of ranting at the coercion in order to make it back off. I
mean back off inside my own psyche. These are not easy questions and I am no
clearer than you are today, Keston!
Best,
AliceBritish, Poets
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