I recently finished Ellen Welcker's first book of poetry, The Botanical Garden (2010), published by Astrophil Press. The book contains two poems: "The Botanical Garden," which spans 63 of the 65 total pages, and "a map, my loves, I am drawing it by heart." On a larger scale, the book presents several socio-political themes that form into a narrative-based social commentary (not to be confused with a satire). The Botanical Garden presents these problems outright, without any illusion as to why or how they are actually a problem, and without a hint of sarcasm. One of these conflicts Welcker presents in the book is immigration and emigration. In light of this theme, “walls” and “barriers” become predominating images in the poem. Immigrants literally “float” across these borders (again in a sort of hybrid human-animal way), and in their various forms find themselves in a “No-space” between countries, cities, and refuge. This tension is imperative throughout the book, juxtaposing Welcker’s ideas of fluidity with society's anti-ideas of such. In the world today, each person has an “I”dentity in relation to their “place” of residence. Welcker presents The Botanical Garden as a critical commentary on that social structure, literally stating that the art of floating between the cultures, peoples, and biological species of our world is the opportune existence in which one can attain a broader and more respectable knowledge. She ends The Botanical Garden in this fluid mindset, stating:
How sound carries in water. How nothing dies in water. How a particle or a being or a sound is held there, suspended, its vibration going on and on and on.
I read this book in the mindset of third-wave feminism, and certainly, feminism today addresses many of the same issues of human rights that The Botanical Garden does. Though the book is not predominantly "feminist," it does argue for a fluid idea of gender, race, and species that reflects many of the ideas that third wave feminists are so adamant about. One controversial idea that is being acknowledged in the book is the idea of the dissolution of borders. Though these borders appear as boundaries between countries, with immigrants floating in the margins and in and out of these countries, the borders lend themselves to larger social borders that Welcker argues must also be broken down. Social barriers like gender, sexuality, and race are dissolved in Welcker's ideas of a new social order--one in which individuals find their personal identity not in relation to their location or gender or color of skin, but rather in relation to their own fundamental self.
Thanks for posting this Kevin! I especially agree with your reading of the book “as a critical commentary on that social structure, literally stating that the art of floating between the cultures, peoples, and biological species of our world is the opportune existence in which one can attain a broader and more respectable knowledge.” I feel as though this is extremely relevant to our class today. On one hand, I feel as though the fluidity of existence that Welcker is exploring is the “feminine essence” that Irigaray and Cixous argue for. However, I feel like such a reading limits “The Botanical Garden,” because I do not think that this fluidity is necessarily female. I think Welcker is exploring/writing/creating a new identity—the displaced—that goes beyond all boundaries (male/female, native/immigrant, animal/human, etc.).
ReplyDeleteI cannot help but wonder what Joan Retallack would have to say about Welcker. Retallack writes about the projects of various feminist writers, may of which we have read. She talks about the tradition of writing from the “I”, of feminist writing as that which exposes feminine life—a sort of “self-expressive” writing. According to Retallack, this is not the most effective way of breaking down gender types. Retallack writes, “to make really productive and useful gender/genre trouble is not to repeat old forms with a difference…but to open up radical explorations into silence—the currently unintelligible—in which our future may make sense.” I am not exactly sure how Retallack envisions this new literary feminism. Based on this definition, I imagine she would criticize Notley for re-inventing the epic. She might criticize Bernadette Mayer for her personal narrative of motherhood. To me, it seems that Welcker’s “The Botanical Garden” might embody this “radical exploration” that Retallack is talking about.
In discussing “gender trouble,” Retallack writes, “our best possibilities lie in texts/alter-texts where the so-called feminine and masculine take migratory, paradoxical and surprising swerves to the enrichment of both, (n)either, and all that lies in between.”
This is what Welcker does in “The Botanical Garden,” though it is not limited to genre. She breaks boundaries and crosses borders, as Kevin describes. Her subjects enter a liminal, fluid space. Rather than merely re-presenting an old form or to express her own thought/narrative as a writer/woman, Welcker travels the globe, questioning every way in which our culture defines places and people. Ultimately, her books makes us, as readers, question our own stability, our own rigidness, not only as women, but as humans. I think this may be what Retallack is calling for—her “poethical process” or “responsively playful social construction.” I think Welcker is one of the experimental poets that Retallack argues present the strongest arguments in literary feminism.
All said, I agree with Kevin, and encourage everyone to check out this book and the (in my opinion) radical work it does for feminism and binary/border breaking as a whole.