The Muse Strikes Back: A Poetic Response by Women to Men

by Katherine McAlpine (Editor), Gail White (Editor)

'A woman who concerns herself with poetry, ' writes Graves in The White Goddess, 'should ... be a silent Muse and inspire the poets by her womanly presence.' If you reverse the traditional genders ... just try to visualize, without snickering, a woman writer at her desk while some hunk of celestial beefcake floats nearby. Are the editors having some fun at men's expense? Somewhat. Will this anthology result in contemporary male and female poets calling a truce? We hope so. Above all, readers will love this first ever collection of female poetic backtalk. Includes Sappho, Bradstreet, Parker, H.D., Bishop, Bogan, Sexton, Olds, Kizer, Hacker, Jong and many more.

Genres: Poetry

360 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1997

Reviews

[Jen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This anthology is subtitled "a poetic response by women to men." Between the aggressive sound of the title and the gender dynamics in the subtitle, I was expecting a book of clever (hopefully) retorts. While this book certainly has those, it also has tributes to male poets by women. Some of the retorts are humorous and some are more caustic. Sometimes the response is to a poem's subject or to a line in a poem and sometimes it's a reaction to a poet's treatment of women in his personal life. Sometimes the responses have nothing to do with gender, as in several riffs on the nursery rhyme about the purple cow, all in the style of male poets of the past. Many give voice to a female character that has been objectified or passed over in a poem. I was surprised how many also had to do with social/economic class. The variety made for an interesting, enjoyable read.

Unfortunately, none of the poems being responded to are included in this volume, so it's really for people who are familiar with much of the "canon" rather than people who are new to poetry (unless you want to look poems up online). The editors do give the names of the poems referred to and sometimes an additional note to further elucidate the response, but these are very brief.

Few of these poems really stand on their own so you have to be into the nature of the project to enjoy this book. The reputations of the women poets also varies widely, with many more little known than well known and several women have more than one response poem in the volume. I found I didn't favor those by poets with more clout.

Often the response poem is in a style similar to that of the male poet. Below are a few excerpts.

Jean LeBlanc responding to Wordsworth's "Solitary Reaper":

Behold him, idle dandy there,
Silken shirt and tailored breeches!
Deciding he must stop and stare
And ponder what labor teaches.
Alone I cut and bind the while,
Alone he finds a patch of shade;
On which of us does fortune smile:
He the man, or I the maid?
[ultimately the maid's answer is that fortune is smiling on the comfortable gentleman]

Here are a couple of jabs at Poe's "Annabel Lee":

by Joyce La Mers:
When I told him my name was Annabel Lee
his face lit up like a Christmas tree.
I could see rhymes swirling through his head
and might have known I'd wind up dead
like Ulalume and that weird Lanore--
I should have been shrieking NEVERMORE!
but his verse rolled on like the sounding sea
as we strolled and the cold enfolded me.
What carried me off? It was not pneumonia
but simply a case of acute euphonia.

A stanza from Gray Davis's take on "Annabel Lee":
We loved, it is true, and we walked by the sea.
We walked and we walked and we walked, didn't we?
Angels didn't much envy our romance, my twitness,
They envied the cardiovascular fitness
Of your beautiful Annabel Lee.

A more serious poem by Amy Lowell tackles with the harsh poetic judgement of Ezra Pound:

The Poet came to a meadow.
Sifted through the grass were were daisies,
Open-mouthed, wondering, they gazed at the sun.
The Poet struck them with his cane.
The little heads few off, and they lay
Dying, open-mouthed and wondering,
One the hard ground.
"They are useless. They were not roses," said the Poet.

Peace be with you, brother. Go your ways.

The Poet came to a stream.
Purple and blue flags waded in the water;
In among them hopped the speckled frogs;
The wind slid through them, rustling.
The Poet lifted his cane,
And the iris heads flew into the water.
They floated away torn and drowning.
"Wretched flowers," sand the Poet,
"They are not roses."

Peace be with you brother. It is your affair.

[I've always thought Amy Lowell got short shrift and would like to locate more of her poems.]

And I can't resist including a couple of the silly purple cow double spoofs, both on the cow and on the poet whose language is imitated. These are by Carolyn Wells.
After Milton:
Hence, vain, deluding cows.
The herd of folly, without color bright,
How little you delight,
Or fill the Poet's mind, or songs arouse!
But, hail! though goddess gay of feature!
Hail, divinest purple creature!
Oh, Cow, they visage is too bright
To hit the sense of human sight.
And though I'd like, just once, to see thee,
I never, never, never'd be thee!

After Tennyson:
Ask me no more. A cow fain I would see
Of purple tint, like to a sun-soaked grape--
Of purple tint, like royal velvet cape--
But such a creature I would never be--
Ask me no more.

After Swinburne:
Only in dim, drowsy depts of a dream do I dare to delight in deliciously dreaming
Cows there may be of a passionate purple,--cos of a violent violet hue;

Ne'er have I seen such a sight, I am certain it is but a demi-delerious dreaming--
Ne're may I happily harbour a hesitant hope in my heart that my dream may come true.


So if you're into the project and have a good background in poetry, this could make for good summer or beach chair reading. And for teachers, it offers some perspectives that students can possibly relate to and offer some comic relief and even suggest some exercises.