Wonderful Women

First of all, I’d like to say a bit about the fantastic Anne Waldman, who many of us saw read on Thursday night (if you didn’t see her, you should check out Kevin’s link). I have never seen anyone read in the way that Waldman does. Her energy is amazing. I especially liked her poem on the various items that could be used to cover up the plutonium in Rocky Flats. She told us that the poem was a transcription of the ideas of her son. Basically, it was a giant list, humorous and powerful by itself and because she read it with such passion. I wish she would have read from “Fast Talking Woman,” because it has a similar form. In this poem, she lists what kinds of woman she is. She writes:

I am a solo woman

I am a sapphire woman

I am a stay at home woman

I am a butterfly woman

I like this poem because it breaks down both the stereotypical “feminine” and the stereotypical “feminist.” Unlike “The Feminine Mystique,” she is saying that she is you can be a “stay at home woman” and still be a woman. You can still be a feminist, or advocate feminism. Her poem shows the variety and possibility of woman. I believe that feminism often errs on the side of “liberating” woman only by giving her a new definition, or sets of limits. But this poem truly frees woman by giving her everything and anything as her own.

On a slightly different note, for those of you who are not already reading her, I highly recommend taking a look at Sommer Browning’s “Either Way I’m Celebrating.” Her book is a combination of poems and illustrations, which are at most times funny, and at all times remarkable. Her longer poem, “To the Housesitter,” deals with issues of women and domesticity. Here is the first part of the poem:

The House

is shaped like candy. And the candy inside its dribbling

refrigerator is shaped like mouths. And the house. It sits on a

hill shaped like a hill. It’s shaping, its flat parts peak, its inside

furrows, then opens to grab you. Then, you are shaped. Now,

you are then shaped, and your then shape punctures the house.

Something nuclear. Something west-end and beachy. You

are still at work. Like the men.

Browning does something interesting in this poem when she addresses a distinctly female audience. She writes to a “you”—“You are still at work”—that we know is feminine because it is in contrast to “the men.” She writes that women are “like the men” in that they are working. In this they are equals. She also discusses how women are “grabbed” and then “shaped” by the house, which seems in line with what Friedan is trying to say. Later in the poem, Browning writes:

every sick and goddamn every time

every violence, a marriage

every child takes hold of my skirt

everything just sort of died

she falls asleep

This conveys the frustration she, as a woman, is feeling. It ends in the acceptance of this, in the failure to do anything, when “she falls asleep.”

The whole of Browning’s book, especially this poem, is wonderfully thought provoking. “To the Housesitter” discusses feminism and women in many different ways. It presents man as a specific character, as the “mechanic.” She writes:

Inside the House

the mechanic storms about. His stereotypical boots drown

delicacy

There is so much to say about this poem and the many ideas it brings up. If you have not read it, I highly suggest doing so. If you have, I would love to hear your thoughts.