FEMINIST POETRY

T.V. Reed and “The Poetical is Political”

Second Wave Feminism

Fought for equality on a variety of fronts:•Equal pay and access to employment•Reproductive Rights•Challenged media representations of women•Began serious anti-domestic violence/rape measures•Fought sexual harassment

“Both consciousness-raising and poetry writing make the subjective objective, make the inner world of ‘personal’ experience available for public ‘political’ discussion” (Reed 78).

Where does poetry fit in?

Poets to consider for Glogs

I have included poems by some of these women. Feel free to use one that I supplied or find your own poetry to analyze in a multimedia presentation.

Adrienne Rich, Audre Lorde, Janice Mirikitani, Sonia Sanchez, Susana Griffin, Nikki Giovanni, Alice Walker, Wendy Rose, Judy Grahn, Pat Parker, Irena Kelpfitz, Robin Morgan, Nellie Wong, Chrystos, June Jordan, Marge Piercy, Lorna Dee Cervantes, Joy Harjo, and Cherrie Moraga—see Reed 92.

Theory/Poets like Gloria Anzaldua, Trinh T. Minh-ha, and Susan Griffin.

Lorde on the importance of feelings

Western society often organizes ideas around binary relationships, including the fundamental concern of feminism: man/woman. What are other binaries you can think of? How is Lorde using them to her advantage here?

“We can train ourselves to respect our feelings and to transpose them into a language so they can be shared. And where that language does not yet exist, it is our poetry which helps to fashion it. Poetry is not only dream and vision; it is the skeleton architecture of our lives. It lays the foundations for a future of change, a bridge across our fears of what has never been before”—Audre Lorde Sister Outsider

Poetry and Culture

“Culture is fundamentally a creative process, a ceaseless process of unmaking old meanings and remaking newer ones” (Reed 79).

Look over the poems in the packet. What sorts of older meanings are the poets perhaps remaking?

Groups like this one came together to discuss their feelings about inequality—giving the “problem that has no name” various names and offering legitimacy to a variety of important women’s issues.

Consciousness-raising was essential to 2nd wave accomplishments

Knowledge/Power/Language

What sort of power are feminist poets reclaiming?

How are they challenging the distortion or trivialization that Reed speaks of?

How can you represent this in something like a Glog?

“The movement understood that knowledge was power, and that knowledge/power was vested in language. At the center of this was the notion that dimensions of women’s voices had been silenced, distorted, or trivialized for centuries” (Reed 91).