I've stayed out of this. I didn't like the poem at all but was vilified and
slandered last time I criticised someone's poem... So I'll say nothing. But
I will express some worry over stock caricatures
"a poet's conscience mind" and "it's sensual female voice"
Throughout history most women have *not "spent hours and hours ironing,
pleating, spraying, starching, crimping" which are processes bound by time
and class, though they have laboured; and many men have spent time doing
other laborious things without which our lives would be different and less
sensual
I'm off to practice my sensual voice
L
----- Original Message -----
From: "Helen Hagemann" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 02 February 2001 11:38
Subject: Re: The P.K. Page poem
| What interests me about this poem by P.K. Page, is that she did write it
| about our *world* with a poet's conscience mind on the subject - in other
| words the 'thin skin of this planet - [should] be loved and stroked' -
like
| skin. It seems to me that the objections are to it's sensual female
voice, -
| the juxtaposition of the woman at the ironing board - the mundane.
| Throughout history women spent hours and hours ironing, pleating,
spraying,
| starching, crimping etc. So, this sensual aestheticism, (synaesthesia) to
| me, portrays a definite woman's view of how we should nuture our earth.
| Astronauts in space see the debris/pollution on earth, wouldn't it be nice
| for them to report back an earth orbiting in space (from every angle) like
a
| freshly pressed shirt, smelling like washed *grasses and mosses* with a
bit
| of Fabulon thrown in. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with the
| message.
| As far as the last stanza, I think it could have ended with/or on the
| stronger line - 'and the hands keep on moving' - like a continuum of
| development, per se with the processes of laundry work, as *thorough
| cleansing.* And perhaps, stayed with, as Alison said, one metaphor alone.
| But this is a minor criticism, and who am I to judge. Moreover, it did get
| picked and there is much discussion. I wish my poetry could get this kind
of
| media.
| Helen
|
| why would we want to choose a "pretentious and silly"
| >poem to read at the top of Mt. Everest, the UN, etc., on World Poetry
| >Day (or whatever this event is called)?
| >
| >Candice
|
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