“…Lately I see that poetry, too, is inseparable from the heart and soul from which it comes. And that there is only waiting for poetry, there is no solicitation. When it comes I recognize it as grace, and am overwhelmed with gratitude…”
I especially like the way she views the coming of poetry as grace, and agree that there is indeed only waiting, no solicitation; this is how I view my own writing.
In an unpublished poem, Kelly Morris writes
“Poetry
is the voice of my soul…
Poetry
is the heart of me
the beat to which
I dance
and dream
and make love
and sometimes
I am still
but the heart
is always beating.”
In another poem by the same author, she explains
“I crave poetry…
I crave it like
a part of me
I need to breathe
to live, to love.”
It is interesting that, although most well-known poets are men, I have personally known many women who write poetry but few men. I can imagine several reasons for this (this is all my own conjecture, not anything I have found documented).
It is often said that women are more emotional than men and also that women are better able to express their emotions. These are two distinctly different phenomena. Of course, these are also stereotypical statements, and do not hold true for all women and all men; however, I think there is probably some truth behind them. Since poetry is generally (but not always) an emotional entity, it seems logical that women would write more poetry than men. Another, related piece is that while women in our society are permitted to express certain emotions, such as fear and sometimes sadness, others are culturally taboo for them, such as anger and hatred. So poetry becomes an outlet for forbidden emotions. Of course, poetry can be an outlet for men as well as women. But there are other reasons I believe women write more poetry than men.
Writing is a creative, creating task. Women in our society are encouraged to engage in such work, the primary task being mothering (I am not saying this is women’s primary task, only that society at large perceives and projects it this way). And obviously women do have some integral creative talents, as they do give birth, nurture families, and make homes (again, this is not to suggest that all women must do all of these things, or that women are valuable only for these things; I am simply pointing out some of women’s many talents and honoring them, something which is seldom done in our culture). Men in our culture, on the other hand, are generally encouraged to engage in destructive rather than creative tasks, such as war, removing non-renewable natural resources form the earth, and generalized acts of violence. I believe this makes it more likely that women would write poetry.
Much has been written about the differences in the ways women and men express themselves. Generally this focuses on verbal communication but sometimes extends to body language. In my first paper, Woman’s Voice in Poetry, I explored the differences in the ways women and men express themselves poetically. The main differences I have discovered are these:
Women express themselves more personally, while men express themselves more abstractly.
Women are more likely to express their emotions, while men are more likely to express facts, their thoughts, and their actions.
The process of expression seems to be of more importance to women, while men seem to focus on the end result.
Women often communicate metaphorically, while men are more straight-forward and precise.
(Of course, not all men and women communicate like this. But enough do for the purposes of this discussion.) All of these reasons make it more likely that women would choose poetry as a means of self-expression.
It is also true that many of the things women want or need to express are considered inappropriate for discussion in our society. Women are often able to express through poetry things which they cannot express any other way. In some instances, such as involving the work of Anne Sexton, women’s poems are very blunt and explicit and therefore called inappropriate. However, in many cases women are able to express through poetry that which they could not express any other way, without such censor.
I can say that for myself, writing poetry has been a way to express things that I otherwise did not know how or felt unable to express. Not only has poetry enabled me to express these things (which is in itself empowering), it has also helped me work through some very difficult emotions. While the act of writing itself was very valuable (probably the most valuable), the act of sharing or reading my poetry has also been empowering and cathartic. I recall once reading three poems about being sexually abused by my father at a poetry reading at a women’s bookstore, and the feeling of expressing myself and being heard and understood is almost indescribable.
There is one final reason why I believe women are more likely than men to express themselves poetically. This is not an original idea; it comes from an essay by Audre Lourde. Lourde suggested that poetry was the form of expressive writing most accessible to poor women because one does not need many tools such as a computer or typewriter or even much paper (scraps will do fine in a pinch); one does not need much time, as poems can be scribbled on a lunch break or while the kids are napping; and level of education does not matter, as spelling, grammar, etc. are not so important to poetry. Lourde’s point was that women’s magazines and anthologies which only accept fiction and nonfiction but not poetry are in a sense discriminating against, or at the very least being unfair to, poor women. My point, however, is that, because many more women than men live in poverty, women are more likely to write poetry for this reason.
Women write about the way they view the world, and this view appears to differ significantly from the way most men (or male poets) view the world. Many of these pieces I found absolutely inspiring. Some of them I have used in my daily meditations, some I have used in my work, and some I have shared with friends. Others I simply enjoyed.
Alice Walker writes
“We alone could devalue gold
by not caring
if it falls or rises
in the market place…
Feather, shells
and sea-shaped stones
are all as rare.
This could be our revolution:
To love what is plentiful
as much as
what is scarce.”
Mary Oliver writes
“You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through to desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.”
Of course, it is difficult to determine whether all ormost women view the world in this way, or just those who write poetry. And do they view the world in this way because they write poetry, or do they write poetry because they view the world in this way? Or are these issues completely separate from each other?
I am not certain of how to answer these questions or even of how to begin seeking answers, but I believe that we should not let the lack of answers prevent us from asking questions; just as the means are as important as the end, the questions are equally as important as the answers (sometimes, more so). Understanding how women write poetry, and more importantly why, gives us insight into the ways women think, feel, and express themselves. Obviously this will improve our communication skills. Less obviously, but perhaps more importantly, it will enable all of us to learn to express ourselves better. And expression is important. As Alice Walker says
“There is a place the loss must go.
There is a place the gain must go.
The leftover love.”
I believe that self-expression is particularly important for women in our culture because women are often expected and conditioned to be silent. It seems that many women lose the ability to express themselves (even to themselves) and therefore the opportunity to be understood and respected (again, even by themselves). Of course, when women do express themselves, it is not always readily accepted, especially by men but also by other women (usually women who lack this ability themselves). I do not believe that this means women should be silent, however; if anything, it gives us all the more reason to speak up and be heard.
In my reading, I was surprised and pleased to discover some of the things women wrote about. I admire the courage of women who write (and publish) poetry about such personal topics as rape, incest, and domestic violence. I believe some of this work has been instrumental in encouraging other women to come forward with their own stories and in relieving the sense of shame and isolation which so often accompanies such tragedies. The importance of sharing these stories, in any way possible, is expressed in a poem by Emily Levy
Cheryl Marie Wade describes the effects of not expressing such things
“Thirty-seven years of denying my father’s
sexual abuse has taken a toll: massive
deterioration of all my joint tissue. I use an
electric wheelchair for mobility and my almost
boneless fingers are as fragile as a cat-
mauled wing. The medical establishment calls
this rheumatoid arthritis. I call it my body’s
eloquent expression of my incest story.”
I have found nearly every women poet (at least, those of whom I have read a body of her work) has written about at least one of these topics. Statistics tell us that approximately one in three children are sexually abused, one in four women are victims of rape or attempted rape, and every fifteen seconds a woman is beaten by her boyfriend or husband. These are horrifying statistics. Yet I would not be at all surprised if they greatly underestimated the prevalence of violence against women. For some reason (perhaps such tragedies inspire women to write) it does appear that women poets have experienced higher rates of violent crimes.
Given such prevalence of violence against women, it seems somewhat surprising that people react with shock or anger or denial when women write about such things. Anne Sexton, who wrote extensively about being abused by her mother as well as other sensitive subjects, was frequently criticized for her honest and explicit work. In fact, a friend of mine offered to do some typing for me, and as she was typing a paper I’d written on Anne Sexton, she commented that she found the poetry about being abused distasteful. Not the fact of the abuse, but the poetry, is considered distasteful. This I do not truly understand. I think it is this attitude which allows such abuse to continue to occur with such frequency. I myself admired Sexton’s courage for writing what must have been very difficult poems.
I myself was inspired by Sexton’s writing about her frequent hospitalizations for the treatment of depression. Many other women also wrote about depression, including Alice Walker and Ntozake Shange, though their depression does not seem to be quite as severe as Sexton’s was. (Again I am forced to wonder, do women write poetry because they are depressed or do the things that make them write poetry also lead to depression? For there does appear to be some sort of link here.) I have also struggled with depression for many years, and though I write a lot of poetry on a lot of different topics, I had never written much about the depression itself (though I wrote about things which cause the depression) nor about my many hospitalizations. After reading Sexton’s work, I decided to begin exploring that in my own work.
In fact, simply writing this piece inspired me to do a great deal of writing, which I suppose is about the best compliment one poet can give to another.
