[Leslie Monsour]

There I was, grazing peacefully in the meadow, when Tim Murphy sneaks up and ropes me into this corral called the Eratosphere, and I’m supposed to stand here and whinny about why it is that women are writing so much good poetry these days.

In his own words, here is the essence of what Tim Murphy proposed: “I figured out when I was very young that the great event of my life would be the emergence of women’s influence from man’s warlike wreckage. There is an extraordinary efflorescence of terrific poetry by women going on, unprecedented in human history. It is new, it is happening right now, and I ask you to join Leslie as your host in a discussion.”

I thought I might begin the conversation by offering a few ideas that popped into my head. When Tim Murphy first brought up this subject, I responded that, where “men’s warlike wreckage” is concerned, it doesn’t seem to me that “women’s influence” has had a speck of positive impact. However, where poetry is concerned, it is more evident that women have made a striking emergence. With the increase in the number of women editors and “women only” anthologies, as well as the greater participation of men in the raising of children and the life of the home, could it be that those day-to-day themes of domesticity and family, which male editors and poets once regarded with little interest, are now held higher esteem? This is mentioned in a couple of my responses on the interview pages. I don’t wish to suggest that the quotidian is some sort of exclusive inspiration for women. The integration of art and life is an ideal held by both genders. But: have women come to excel at it? Nor do I wish to leave the impression here that women aren't producing in equal amounts significant and distinctively excellent poems on nature, cities, mythology, history, art, politics, society, religion, science, and everything else under the sun.

Another aspect of the topic, it seems to me, is the possible role formal poetry plays. Does the “extraordinary efflorescence of terrific poetry by women” have anything to do with the expanding practice and popularity of formal verse? Does the claim apply to ALL poetry by women, or is it limited to formalism? In other words, has the “formalist movement” produced larger numbers of distinguished women poets than the free verse establishment has—and, if so, why? There has clearly been an abundance of superior sonnets. Has the rise of contemporary formalism led to an “efflorescence,” in general, of exceptional poetry by both women AND men?

In further exploration, I call on a couple of venerable voices: First, W.H. Auden, in his Foreword to Phyllis McGinely’s Times Three, suggests distinctions between the masculine and feminine imagination. He offers McGinley’s own views:

For little boys are rancorous
When robbed of any myth,
And spiteful and cantankerous
To all their kin and kith.
But little girls can draw conclusions
And profit from their lost illusions.

Auden concludes: “The masculine imagination lives in a state of perpetual revolt against the limitations of human life…Left to itself, the masculine imagination has very little appreciation for the here and now; it prefers to dwell on what is absent, on what has been or may be…In contrast, the feminine imagination accepts facts and is coolly realistic” with a “total lack of nostalgia.” McGinley “does not, like many male satirists, lose her temper or even show shocked surprise; she merely observes what is the case with deadly accuracy.”

I love the notion that women aren’t as nostalgic as men; but, is this truly the case, and how does this “coolly realistic” acceptance figure in the surge of superior poetry by women? Have women achieved a new deadpan essence in their ars poetica?

Finally, Rilke, in one of his “Letters to a Young Poet,” wrote this visionary passage a century ago:

“The girl and the woman, in their new, their own unfolding, will but in passing be imitators of masculine ways, good and bad, and repeaters of masculine professions. After the uncertainty of such transitions it will become apparent that women were only going through the profusion and the vicissitude of those (often ridiculous) disguises in order to cleanse their own most characteristic nature of the distorting influences of the other sex. Women, in whom life lingers and dwells more immediately, more fruitfully and more confidently, must surely have become fundamentally riper people, more human people, than easygoing man, who is not pulled down below the surface of life by the weight of any fruit of his body, and who, presumptuous and hasty, undervalues what he thinks he loves. This humanity of woman, borne its full time in suffering and humiliation, will come to light when she will have stripped off the conventions of mere femininity in the mutations of her outward status, and those men who do not yet feel it approaching today will be surprised and struck by it. Some day (and for this, particularly in the northern countries, reliable signs are already speaking and shining), some day there will be girls and women whose name will no longer signify merely an opposite of the masculine, but something in itself, something that makes one think, not of any complement and limit, but only of life and existence: the feminine human being.”

Rilke’s statement addresses to some degree Tim Murphy’s question to me about when women will produce a Frost or a Wilbur. Perhaps women are beyond that question, having by now “cleansed their own most characteristic nature of the distorting influences of the other sex.” Man, I wouldn’t have thought of putting it that way. Would you? So, have women poets “stripped off the conventions of mere femininity” and evolved out of “an opposite of the masculine” into “the feminine human being?”

Are we acknowledging and appreciating to greater degrees today the essential qualities that have always been present in the poetry of women, or has something new happened? Perhaps greater acknowledgment has allowed women to become more widely published, thereby making the good poetry women have always written more prevalent now than it was a couple of decades ago. Some of us who have just come from a bad reading or flung down in disgust the latest issue of a journal containing some truly rotten poetry by women might be hard pressed to stand behind this claim. I will say, now that I think of it, that in recent years I’ve been following, with increased admiration and awe, more poetry by women than ever before; so, perhaps Tim Murphy is genuinely on to something.

We invite, of course, all Sphere members to the discussions, as we host the following specific poets: Rhina Espaillat, Gail White, A.E. Stallings, Deborah Warren, Suzanne Doyle, Catherine Tufariello, Julie Kane, and Susan McLean. I’ll open new threads for my introductions of Rhina and Gail first, and we’ll have their thoughts and ideas to react to. While I’m doing that, jump in here, everyone, anytime.

Meanwhile, the “Questions for Leslie Monsour” interview has a second page with further responses from me. Please check it out, and keep firing away on all fronts.









<u>Times Three</u>ars poetica

[Julie Steiner]

Very interesting observations, Leslie. Let's apply Rilke's "conventions of mere femininity" to two important parts of the po biz:

1. Networking
Ooh, the famous poet I admire is chitchatting after the reading! Great! I'll wait my turn!....Hmmm, my turn's not coming. Should I break into the conversation and introduce myself? Nah, that's too pushy...Darn, I've started talking at the same time as someone else! I'll do the polite thing and fall silent so the other person can continue...I've been waiting for another opening, and it's never come...Who am I to interrupt that professor who's been monopolizing the poet for a good twenty minutes? No, I'll just look rude and demanding...Darn, the poet has to leave to catch a train now, and I've missed my chance...Oh, well, I've never been much of a schmoozer...

2. Submitting work to editors
Awww...This poem has been rejected twice now, by editors I respect...I really liked it myself, but I guess this one's a clinker, and I should just give up on it. Of course I'm not a quitter--after all, I did try placing it elsewhere after the <u>first</u> market didn't work out--but I'm not stupid, either. Got to face facts and move on...And at least I'm learning from this experience. I've learned that these two editors don't like my work, so if I send them any more they'll think I'm not getting the message...Fine, I'll just cross these two markets off my list...

Fear of being perceived (by themselves or others) as bitchy, pushy, narcissistic, or clueless can be tremendously inhibiting to women in any field. However, I think such self-censorship is particularly deadly in the po biz, since finding an audience requires such persistent self-promotion. (A resilient response to editorial rejections is particularly important for keeping one's name and work before the public!)

So, maybe we've been seeing more fine poems by women in recent years because women are growing more comfortable with that traditionally unladylike work of forcing oneself back into the spotlight, over and over and over again. We can't identify and enjoy fine work if its author keeps it safely in the shadows!

Conversely, the sight of good stuff in the spotlight inspires others to produce good stuff...some of which will, in turn, be pushed out onstage.

Julie Stoner



[This message has been edited by Julie Stoner (edited November 05, 2008).]

[A. E. Stallings]

I think Julie has a very good point--maybe women are being bolder about getting their work out. Maybe we're just part of a general wave--male and female--of excellent poetry (if indeed it is excellent--I hope so). I certainly think there is a generation of younger-ish folks working in form, male and female, who have some similarly high and fluent levels of mastery--Geoff Brock, Bill Coyle, Josh Mehigan, Christian Wiman, David Yezzi, Amit Majmudar, etc. to name just a few among the men.

I guess I am just really leery of sweeping gender statemenst regarding the arts. People go into art for such idiosyncratic reasons, and "poets" is such a statistically small sampling, that it seems to me individual aesthetics and temperament are likely to be as strong or stronger factors than groupings such as "female poets writing in form". Sure, some subject matters and experiences will tend to show up in one gender rather than another, but hardly exclusively. There are male poets too writing about pregnancy and miscarriages and small children--male poets who, as it happens, have families. I think that men are writing about these things more has to do with the fact that men of this generation as a whole tend to have a more active role in child-rearing nowadays.

Not to say that there are no differences--women still tend to be primary care-givers, and that is something a number of female poet friends of mine and I feel affects us strongly--mostly in terms of time and energy, and a vague worry, perhaps, that were we male poets, we would prioritize our work differently.

There may be masculine or feminine sides of the imagination, if we want to define them thus, but I think a lot of poets have a gender-opposite type imagination--male poets tending to be more "sensitive" and introspective or what have you than many men, female poets tending to have "bolder" or more aggressive imaginations than many other women.

And sure, we haven't produced a Frost or a Wilbur. But--as has been pointed out--men haven't produced a Jane Austen or a Plath or a Bishop. (A lot of the verbal genius of women has historically been focused in prose or fiction rather than poetry--which has to do, I think, with 19th century education, and the ranking of genres. Now that fiction probably ranks higher than poetry, a lot of that genius is going into poetry. Go figure.) Also, our poetic inheritences do not come down chromosomal lines of xs or ys. A significant chunk of my major influences are gay male poets. Nearly all my influences were childless. Each of us owns the entire tradition, or we ought to.

Nonetheless, I think it is great too to celebrate the inspiring and strong work of women in our midst!



[This message has been edited by A. E. Stallings (edited November 06, 2008).]

[Tim Murphy]

Gay males as influence, Alicia? I don't suppose they are Murphy and Sullivan. In fact, from a close acquaintance with text Stallings, I imagine they are Housman, Auden and Cavafy. Cavafy was a huge influence on me, Housman not at all. I think though that if we're serious about this business of versecraft, our influences aren't those whose lives are parallel to our own, but those who put thoughts together in verses we can't get out of our heads and hearts and spirits. My biggest, overwhelming influence is Yeats. I memorized 10,000 of his lines, even the Wanderings of Oisin, heaven help me. I was twenty-seven before I got over it. Now however, I find that contemporary women are an entirely salutory influence on me. You ladies are making me pay far closer attention to detail, to find my music therein, to enlarge my notion of the poem. Thank you.

[Jennifer Reeser]

Hello, welcome to everyone. And thanks to you, Leslie, for your commitment, and to Tim, for his broaching of this topic.

The Auden quote regarding women intrigues me. I would have to say I don't agree, in a general sense. It occurs to me that Auden here may have been describing his own personal anima -- that is, in psychology what Carl Jung posited as a man's "inner opposite," (which might also translate into Auden's ideal woman) -- perhaps his Laura. Or his Beatrice.

We possess a fair history of writing by women which certainly qualifies as nostalgic, overly-romantic or sentimental, as well as poetry "in revolt" against the reality he mentions, and Auden may have been a bit too romantic and generous himself by this statement, I think.

[Susan McLean]

It occurs to me that no one goes around discussing what John Milton and Ogden Nash have in common as male poets. The assumption is that there will be widely varying voices among men, and the wider, the better. I am hoping that as more and more women are widely read, people will start to see that there is just as wide a range among their voices. I don't think there are any limits to the range of subjects that women can write about, but because their experiences differ from men's in a few ways, women are more likely to write about some things than men are, and when their subjects overlap, women's viewpoints are often different. I think we are still in a time when women feel the need to break stereotypes about them (which are still very real). In time, we may have fewer stereotypes to battle, so there won't be a need to subvert them.

I love the range of voices I hear from women poets now, each one distinct and individual. I learn something from every good writer I read, male or female, but I often find that it is among contemporary women writers that I read of experiences and reactions that are closest to my own. To hear your own thoughts and experiences coming from someone else forms a powerful connection. I'd say that my own pleasure reading in poetry therefore leans about 60/40 in favor of women writers (despite or because of the fact that throughout my education the percentage was more like 90/10 in men's favor).

Susan

[Mary Meriam]

Next time you hear those po-biz self-censorship tapes playing in your head, take that tape out and put this one in:

Why, sir, I trust I may have leave to speak;
And speak I will; I am no child, no babe:
Your betters have endured me say my mind,
And if you cannot, best you stop your ears.
My tongue will tell the anger of my heart,
Or else my heart concealing it will break,
And rather than it shall, I will be free
Even to the uttermost, as I please, in words.

- The Taming of the Shrew

[Terese Coe]

"Women... must surely have become fundamentally riper people, more human people, than easygoing man, who is not pulled down below the surface of life by the weight of any fruit of his body, and who, presumptuous and hasty, undervalues what he thinks he loves. This humanity of woman, borne its full time in suffering and humiliation, will come to light when she will have stripped off the conventions of mere femininity in the mutations of her outward status..."

--Leslie, quoting Rilke

I don't see woman "pulled down below the surface of life by the fruit of [her] body." It's far more complicated than that. In many ways it depends on the mother and the child, their relationship and their characters. One can feel much more a part of humanity after childbirth--and under the best of circumstances this is a boon to creativity. In fact, encouraging and enabling creativity in one's child is an enormous spur to one's own creativity. But circumstance and possibility are so variable in childraising, as one can easily perceive almost anywhere.

"women, having...'cleansed their own most characteristic nature of the distorting influences of the other sex'"

--Leslie, quoting ??Tim Murphy?? {Sorry if I'm mistaken on the source, but if someone corrects me on this, I'll be happy to edit.}

Which influences distort and which do not? What is a distortion and what is not? Well, that depends...Many layers of twaddle here.

"I guess I am just really leery of sweeping gender statemenst regarding the arts. People go into art for such idiosyncratic reasons, and "poets" is such a statistically small sampling, that it seems to me individual aesthetics and temperament are likely to be as strong or stronger factors than groupings such as "female poets writing in form". Sure, some subject matters and experiences will tend to show up in one gender rather than another, but hardly exclusively..."

--Alicia

Precisely! Thanks for clarifying, Alicia.

"There may be masculine or feminine sides of the imagination, if we want to define them thus..." [Alicia]

I doubt even this is true except for environmental influences, and the act of defining too is subject to certain environmental/historical influences.

"...male poets tending to be more "sensitive" and introspective or what have you than many men, female poets tending to have "bolder" or more aggressive imaginations than many other women." [Alicia, cont.]

True for the most part, perhaps. But it's not about poets per se--more about writers [who are generally more independent thinkers than one finds in the general population] and other artists and intellectuals as well.

Edit: re the latter two paragraphs: Another reason what Alicia says is true is the tendency of androgynous people to become artists/writers more readily than those who are not androgynous (of mind and temperament). They're more creative--whether they can handle the incredible challenges of devoting their lives, incomes, psyches, and love life to the arts is another question entirely, it seems.

[This message has been edited by Terese Coe (edited November 07, 2008).]