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, the 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 our 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
>
>
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