Quote:
Originally Posted by Julie Steiner
Personally, I don't think structuring this poem in a way that is so patently derivative from this poem does the impact any favors whatsoever. Others may disagree, and may feel that the nod to another poem makes the shocking content of the newer poem more tolerable. I think it would have been more effective being taken on its own terms, though. |
Actually, for me the savage impact of the “sisters” poem would be lessened if the Harjo model were mentioned. Both are long non-metrical list poems with very similar line starts. I don’t know what Harjo might think. She cut a path, another used it powerfully. Which one is “better”, I dare not attempt. There is an example in a poem by Oscar Wilde about early modern Huguenot Christian martyrs in France that closely parallels and echoes another written contemporaneously by an early modern English poet writing about something similar. I don’t have either handy this instant. Though valuable in my mind, Wilde’s seems like a kind of laudable virtue signaling; the earlier one seems much more genuine, if only because it was timely.