You all must watch these! If you really want to know what poetry and feminism was like in the seventies, these videos will give you some clues. Watch especially Eileen Myles, Alice Notley, and Bernadette Mayer. And COUNT - how many men in these films, how many women?
http://poetryproject.org/history/public-access-poetry
This is so wonderful! The energy of these women is incredible. These reading are so different from most of the ones I have actually been to recently, save for Anne Waldman. For these women, their poetry is so very political. It is their politics, their activism (not that this is not true of poets today, but it is so clearly so in these videos). Another thing that is striking about these poets is that they are constantly engaging with each other, not in a name-dropping, exclusive sort of way, but in a constant dialogue. Eileen Miles talks about Bernadette Meyer. Alice Notley talks about Bob Dylan (and other Bobs). They are engaging in a political world when they write and read their poetry, and you can feel just by watching them that the stakes are high, that they are really speaking out and acting on their beliefs. There is much more to explore here. Thank you for showing us this.
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