Of women, poetry, and power : strategies of address in Dickinson, Miles, Brooks, Lorde, and Angelou /
Zofia Burr.
- Urbana : University of Illinois Press, c2002.
- xii, 232 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Introduction. 1. The Canonization of Emily Dickinson -- 2. Josephine Miles and the Common Materials of Language -- 3. Reading Gwendolyn Brooks across Audiences -- 4. Audre Lorde and the Responsibility of the Reader -- 5. Maya Angelou on the Inaugural Stage.
Publisher description: The haunting legacy of Emily Dickinson's life and work has shaped a romantic conception of poetry as private, personal, and expressive that has governed the reception of subsequent American women poets. Of Women, Poetry, and Power demonstrates how the canonization of Dickinson has consolidated limiting assumptions about women's poetry in twentieth-century America and models an alternative reading practice that allows for deeper engagement with the political work of modern poetry. Analyzing the reception of poems by Josephine Miles, Gwendolyn Brooks, Audre Lorde, and Maya Angelou, Zofia Burr shows the persistence of these critical outlooks and dispels the belief that we have long since moved beyond such limiting gendered expectations. Turning away from an obsessive concern with a poet's biography, Burr's readings of contemporary women's poetry accentuate its engagement and provocation of readers through its forms of address. Burr shows how displacing the limits of dominant reception is possible by approaching poetry as communicative utterance, not just as self-expression. "A fascinating, ground-breaking study of what it means to write poetry as a woman in America. Sensitive to poetic meaning and style, sharp and wide-ranging in its work on criticism and reviewing, this study provides a strong look at Emily Dickinson as a paradigmatic case and does strong and original readings of several major twentieth-century figures." -- Timothy Morris, author of Becoming Canonical in American Poetry. Zofia Burr is an associate professor of English at George Mason University and the editor of Set in Motion: Essays, Interviews, and Dialogues by A. R. Ammons.
0252027698 (alk. paper)
2002002332
Dickinson, Emily, 1830-1886 --Criticism and interpretation. Brooks, Gwendolyn, 1917- --Criticism and interpretation. Miles, Josephine, 1911- --Criticism and interpretation. Angelou, Maya--Criticism and interpretation. Lorde, Audre--Criticism and interpretation.
American poetry--Women authors--History and criticism. Women and literature--History.--United States Authors and readers--History.--United States Power (Social sciences) in literature.