POEMS FROM THE WOMAN'S MOVEMENT
Edited by Honor Moore
American Poets Project
The Library of America
(Poetry by Alta, Rae Armantrout, Olga Broumas,Rita Mae Brown, Jan Clausen, Michelle Cliff, Lucille Clifton, Jane Cooper, Martha Courtot, Beverly Dahlen, Toi Derricotte, Diane Di Prima, Rachel Balu DuPlessis, Carolyn Forche, Kathleen Fraser, Elsa Gidlow, Louise Gluck, Jorie Graham, Judy Grahn, Susan Griffin, Marilyn Hacker, Jana Harris, Fanny Howe, Erica Jong, June Jordan, Carolyn Kizer, Irena Klepfisz, Maxine Kumin, Joan Larkin, Denise Levertov, Audre Lorde, Cynthia MacDonald, Bernadette Mayer, Honor Moore, Carol Muske-Dukes, Jane Miller, Robin Morgan, Eileen Myles, Alice Notley, Sharon Olds, Alicia Ostriker, Maureen Owen, Pat Parker, Molly Peacock, Marce Piercy, Sylvia Plath, Katha Pollott, Marie Ponsot, Adrienne Rich, Muriel Rukeyser, Alice Walker, and Fran Winant.)
Several of these poems brought me back to the time when I still met women who were on fire about women's rights. Mostly since then I have met women who are bitches to other women. (Erica Jong has a theory that these creatures aren't women at all.)
Browsing through the bios in back of the book, I started searching for years of birth. Seems the youngest woman whose poetry is presented in this book was born in 1950.
I had to wonder. Are women younger than this not credited with:
Being important in the woman's movement?
Not writing poetry considered to represent the woman's movement?
Not interested in the woman's movement and the rights, responsibilities, and privileges (which they have inherited as simply their right as women)?
Writing feminist poetry that is not identified or accepted as feminist poetry by "mothers" of the movement or "mothers" of poetry?
Writing poetry that is not identified as worthy by the "literary cannon" and it's supposed upholders? (I yawn at the cannon.)
(Many "older" self identified feminist women who I've talked to about women of younger generations think they're a disaster when it comes to behaving and believing in a way of life that upholds feminism; So many of them lost to the importance instead of being "girly girls" whose lives revolve around what nail polish color to wear and shopping. Or we've talked about the horrific and sick influence of rap music on women; who the hell wants to have in their lives anyone who calls women "ho's", thinks women are "ho's" or self identifies as a" ho"? Why else is the female teenage ambition in high school to reduced to becoming experts at giving blow jobs boys demand so they can have and/or hold onto a boyfriend and/or starving themselves model thin? Are these young women the result of rotten parenting or what?)
Consider then that POEMS FROM THE WOMAN'S MOVEMENT presents poems by poets who are and were unafraid to make the personal political and to write about subjects such as rape, bad sex, lesbianism, marital boredom, the effects of racism and sexism on their ability to live life independently and to the fullest.
I wish with all my heart that this poetry and the women who wrote it could have had more impact on society because it feels like not much has changed. The last sexist asshole I encountered just a few months ago was in his twenties, healthy, handsome, black, and highly educated and going to law school and working full time. He told me he did not "feel sorry" for me because I had no idea how hard it was to be a black man. He told me to "dumb down" as well. I was reminded that in college not one male student took the Women's Literature class I took.
C Christine Trzyna 2012
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