I'm a bit puzzled by anyone who knows P.K. Page's work thinking about her
as a "feminist". She is a very old lady and probably began publishing with the initials
not to be considered as such. Neither can I see her as having an "enviable position in
Canadian poetry. Her work extends over many many years and there are
so many others since her time. Perhaps it is her long connection with South
America, (her husband was an ambassador in Brazil) that brought the Neruda
quote to mind. This poem seems to me very different from most of her
earlier work, I found it less interesting than most but it is difficult for those
who are young, relatively youthful, or new to the field to interpret the poet
rather than the particular poem. I too wonder about the choice of piece but think
we are giving the whole matter more attention than the work deserves. Fran

[log in to unmask] wrote:

[log in to unmask]">

Yes, and I took this part as referring to Alison--"Female poets
already occupying a confident space on the bookshelves, with
editors and in their publishing house with several collections
to their name can rest there. They have choices, but there is
no need for struggle, no need for change, no need for activism!"--
because "For Alison!" followed so soon thereafter.

But I see now that it could equally well apply to P.K. Page's
enviable position in Canadian poetry--one that will soon enable
her to bring "the female voice" front and center on the world-
poetry stage--so perhaps this was my "misconstrual."

It is very hard for a woman of my generation (I'm 52) to listen
to younger women blathering on about my relative freedom from the
"struggle," the "change," and the "activism" they would claim only
for themselves now--and only because they don!
't!
 know or choose to
ignore their own history as feminists--Candice


At 11:29 PM 2/4/01 -0000, you wrote:

There is no such thing as the "female voice".  There are,
of course, poets who are women.

is, Alison, I hesitantly think,  a comment of yours which Helen's post
_appears_ to pick up on and follow through in ways which seem to be
implicity an associational critique. Of course, Helen could post now or soon
and aver that this is just a misconstrual, a mishap of wide generalisations,
which would be for the better.

why should men
have all the good stuff?  Since when were intelligence, skill, erudition
solely reserved for men?

Absolutely. Possession of shining virtues and the state of being trodden on
( I could phrase that less decorously)  are conditions that fate distributes
as blindly as everything else. But we can all equally democratically inch
towards the former.
david



----- Original Message -----
From: <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, February 04, 2001 10:55 PM
Subject: Re: I am woman, hear my voice...

Candice, others, thanks for your support, but I didn't (call me thick)
read Helen's posting as an attack on _me_.  (Was it, Helen?)

Art will always be subject to the confines and boundaries of an

ambitious,

dominant power.

Art is the resistance to such powers: in poetry's case, the seductive
potencies of language, the subtle and not-so-subtle chains,!
 t!
he blinkers,
the legislations with rule us all unknowing.  The problem with poems such
as Page's (and I confess, my indifference to it has been swiftly changing
to an active dislike) is that it so neatly fails to resist anything like
that: I can't read anything there which challenges any of the traditional
male shapings of femininity, but rather a glorification of those very
shapings, down to the sweet cadences.  The poetries which rip these
things apart with a full-blown, unashamed female sexuality - say,
Harwood's, or Notley's, to take two extremes - do nothing of the sort.
They are all too happy to take so-called "masculine" language,
"masculine" traditions, and use them for their own ends - why should men
have all the good stuff?  Since when were intelligence, skill, erudition
solely reserved for men?

I think we should be extremely wary of that definition of "feminine"
which seeks to infantilise us, or to define us solely by !
ou!
r biological
female functions.  It's rather close to "don't bother your pretty head
with that grownup stuff", which is of course the velvet glove on the fist
of domestic violence.  And we should be aware, also, of the limitations
there have been on men: on another list, a couple of male poets are
discussing how domesticity, when written about by men, has also been
trivialised by critics as "unimportant".

Best

Alison