Women and poetry

the long version

In Women and Poetry, poet Carol Muske critically examines her evolving attitudes on the subject of women poets and the self. Muske argues that the poem of "testimony," created in part by the reinforcement of critics, has overshadowed the diverse variety and range of poems by women. She critiques the notion that the poem of testimony "fits" women's needs in particular, as if it were a defining characteristic. To Muriel Rukeyser's often quoted lines "If just one women told the truth about her life/the world would split open," Muske retorts, "What truth?" In so doing, she illustrates a split in women's poetry between those whose self stood as representative of truth or moral narrative, and those who continued to write as if the self were a fiction. A rich array of women's poetry is considered, including work by Eavan Boland, Sandra Cisneros, Lucille Clifton, Rita Dove, Louise Gluck, Marilyn Hacker, Jane Kenyon, Maxine Kumin, Grace Paley, Adrienne Rich, and Laura Riding.