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"Daystar" by former poet-laureate Rita Dove pairs up nicely with "Aunt Hannah." Everyone I know has heard, or spoken, thoughts similar to the speaker (named Beulah). "Daystar" comes from Rita Dove's 1986 book Thomas and Beulah.
"DayStar" By Rita Dove | Bukisa.com
I cannot find an online version of Adrienne Rich's "Woman-Right" (see my note at end about copyright), but I hope everyone will try to locate it. A short poem, it strikes me as a perfect companion to the painting "Burnt Out," above. The images and actions in the poem more or less outline widely accepted differences in the mindsets of women and men (for one thing, we men like to measure). Now that science has verified some of these contrasts--admittedly in broad, sweeping, stereotyping terms--Rich seems prescient (her poem from the mid-1970s predates, I think, later scientific announcements about male and female brains).
In the potential pathology about what's at stake in gender conflicts, Marge Piercy's "The Friend" takes things up a notch. How extreme is her exaggeration--in a metaphorical effort to make a point, don't you think? And why title the poem "The Friend"?
The Friend by Marge Piercy
Just yesterday at this site, we saw three reputable poems by three reputable poets, all modern males, perceiving women in a way that seems well-intentioned. In fact, Richard Wilbur's "Piazza di Spagna" seems to me a kind of apotheosis of the girl in Rome. Even so, might each poem justifiably be called an objectification of a woman?
And are today's three poems--all by women--more accurate than the men's poems in their portrait of American women, at least as they were prior to about 1990?
I realize that these questions invite misleading stereotypes and distortions; whatever Dove, Rich, and Piercy are saying, there will be exceptions by the dozen. But might it be instructive to discuss with someone of the other gender the character, the extent, and the purpose of any hyperbole you find here? Do these six poems and four nineteenth century American paintings (two on Dec. 1, plus today's) describe the core of any gap that remains between the genders? Six poems and four old paintings won't say it all, but are they speaking something like a truth? A kernel?
It's the holiday season. Be gentle.
(Again, by the way, if someone knows how I can resolve my worries about copyright issues, please let me know. Feeling obliged to put only links in my posts, rather than entire poems, unless the author is long dead, seems a rinky-dink game that only fourth-tier lawyers and bitter, bitter authors or their descendants would want to play. But I'm not going to waste my time engaging with them. And what is fair use anyway? It's not as if I'm passing these off as my work. Are they afraid I'll make millions off their or their granparents'? work? If a few of my readers buy a book by one of the poets I cite, how is that poet damaged? Litigious America is disgusting. Happy Holidays. Make sure those mittens you buy are properly copyrighted.).
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