Changing Topographies, New Feminisms, and Women Poets

doi:10.1017/9781108699518.007

5 - Changing Topographies, New Feminisms, and Women Poets

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 February 2021

Ann Vickery

Edited by

Timothy Yu

Show author details

Timothy Yu: Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin

Book contents

Get access

Summary

Twenty-first-century poetry by women demonstrates a multiplicity of perspectives, connection and loss, and continuing revolutions across gender and genre. At the outset of the twenty-first century, “gurlesque” poets such as Arielle Greenberg stress artifice and performance in a heightened, ironic attention to the gendered body on display. While gurlesque focuses on the artifice of gender performance, hip-hop and performance poetries focus on authenticity and forms of truth-telling, engaging the politics of fourth-wave feminism. After 9/11, a sense of precarity would be heightened in the new millennium through manmade crises and natural disasters. A rise in decolonizing poetics has given particular attention to the subjection of the female body of color and modes of resilience. The new millennium is perhaps best characterized by writing that is linguistically innovative and embodied, known variously as post-Language poetics, a new lyricism, or hybrid poetry. Digital technologies brought paradigmatic shifts to the ways in how poetry circulated and who could write it.

Keywords

poetry women feminism American literature gurlesque performance decolonial hybrid lyric

Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge Companion to Twenty-First-Century American Poetry , pp. 71 - 89

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108699518.007 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Aguirre, Angela. “How I Define My Chingona Fire.” HuffPost, January 24, 2017, www.huffpost.com/entry/how-i-define-my-chingona-fire_b_5887de69e4b0a53ed60c6a35 Google Scholar

Ashton, Jennifer. “Our Bodies, Our Poems.” American Literary History vol. 19, no. 1, 2007, pp. 211–231.Google Scholar

Bang, Mary Jo. Elegy. Graywolf Press, 2019.Google Scholar

Banggo, Kathy Dee Kaleolkealoha Kaloloahilani. “Fly, Da Mo’o & Me.” Whetu Moana: Contemporary Polynesian Poetry in English, edited by Wendt, Albert, Whaitiri, Reina, and Sullivan, Robert. University of Hawai’i Press, 2003, p. 13.Google Scholar

Barnhart, Danielle and Mahan, Iris, editors. Women of Resistance: Poems for a New Feminism. OR Books, 2018.CrossRef Google Scholar

Bellamy, Dodie. Cunt-Ups. Tender Buttons Press, 2001.Google Scholar

Bergvall, Caroline. “The Conceptual Twist: A Foreword.” I’ll Drown My Book: Conceptual Writing by Women, edited by Bergvall, Caroline, Browne, Laynie, Carmody, Teresa, and Place, Vanessa. Les Figues Press, 2012, pp. 18–22.Google Scholar

Bergvall, Caroline, Browne, Layne, Carmody, Teresa, and Place, Vanessa, editors. I’ll Drown My Book: Conceptual Writing by Women. Les Figues Press, 2012.Google Scholar

Betts, Tara. Arc & Hue. Aquarius Press/Willow Books, 2009.Google Scholar

Boyer, Anne. “No.” Poetry Foundation, April 13, 2017, www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2017/04/no Google Scholar

Boykoff, Jules and Sand, Kaia, editors. Landscapes of Dissent: Guerilla Poetry and Public Space. Palm Press, 2008.Google Scholar

Brown, Lee Ann. Polyverse. Sun & Moon Press, 1999.Google Scholar

Browne, Laynie. Daily Sonnets. Counterpath Press, 2007.Google Scholar

Browne, Laynie. “A Conceptual Assemblage: An Introduction.” I’ll Drown My Book: Conceptual Writing by Women, edited by Bergvall, Caroline, Browne, Laynie, Carmody, Teresa, and Place, Vanessa. Les Figues Press, 2012, pp. 14–17.Google Scholar

Celona, Tina Brown. “Sunday Morning Cunt Poem.” Gurlesque: The New Grrly, Grotesque, Burlesque Poetics, edited by Glenum, Lara and Greenberg, Arielle. Saturnalia Books, 2010, p. 277.Google Scholar

Cezanne, Imani. “Heels.” Uploaded by Button Poetry, December 29, 2014, https://buttonpoetry.tumblr.com/post/106570099862/imani-cezanne-heels-they-said-women-like Google Scholar

Chamberlain, Prudence. The Feminist Fourth Wave: Affective Temporality. Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.Google Scholar

Choi, Don Mee. Hardly War. Wave Books, 2016.Google Scholar

Cocozza, Paula. “Poet Claudia Rankine: ‘The invisibility of black women is astounding.” The Guardian, June 30, 2015, www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/jun/29/poet-claudia-rankine-invisibility-black-women-everyday-racism-citizen?CMP=share_btn_fb Google Scholar

Coke, Allison Adelle Hedge. “America, I Sing You Back.” Poetry Foundation, www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/89062/america-i-sing-you-back Google Scholar

Cooley, Nicola. Breach: Poems. Louisiana State University Press, 2010.Google Scholar

Critchley, Emily, editor. Out of Everywhere 2: Linguistically Innovative Poetry by Women in North America and the UK. Reality Street, 2015.Google Scholar

Damon, Maria. “‘Was that “Different,” “Dissident,” or “Dissonant”’: Poetry (n) the Public Spear – Slams, Open Readings, and Dissident Traditions.” Close Listening and the Performed Word, edited by Bernstein, Charles. Oxford University Press, 1998, pp. 324–342.CrossRef Google Scholar

Davidson, Michael. “Introduction: American Poetry, 2000–2009.” Contemporary Literature vol. 52, no. 4, 2011, pp. 597–629.CrossRef Google Scholar

Diggs, La Tasha N. Nevada. “trail mix.” Poets.org, www.poets.org/poetsorg/poemtrail-mix-audio-only Google Scholar

Dirlik, Arif. “The Global in the Local.” Global/Local: Cultural Production and the Transnational Imaginary, edited by Wilson, Rob and Dissanayake, Wimal. Duke University Press, 1996, pp. 21–45.Google Scholar

Dolven, Jeff. “Rape, Jokes, Consent.” Studies in Gender and Sexuality vol. 18, no.4, 2017, pp. 274–276.CrossRef Google Scholar

Dunn, Carolyn and Comfort, Carol, editors. Through the Eye of the Deer: An Anthology of Native American Women Writers. Aunt Lute Books, 1999.Google Scholar

DuPlessis, Rachel Blau. The Pink Guitar: Writing as Feminist Practice. Routledge, 1990.Google Scholar

DuPlessis, Rachel Blau. Purple Passages: Pound, Eliot, Zukofsky, Olson, Creeley, and the Ends of Patriarchal Poetry. University of Iowa Press, 2012.Google Scholar

Evans, Steve. “The American Avant-Garde After 1989: Notes Towards a History.” Assembling Alternatives: Reading Postmodern Poetries Transnationally, edited by Huk, Romana. Wesleyan University Press, 2003.Google Scholar

Finch, Annie. “2000–2009: The Decade in Poetry.” Poetry Foundation, December 21, 2009, www.poetryfoundation.org/articles/69457/2000–2009-the-decade-in-poetry Google Scholar

Gizzi, Peter and Spahr, Juliana, editors. Writing from the New Coast. Garlic Press, 1993.Google Scholar

Glenum, Lara. “Notes on the Gurlesque: Queering Heterosexuality,” Exoskeleton, March 26, 2010, http://exoskeleton-johannes.blogspot.com/2010/03/note-on-gurlesque-queering.html Google Scholar

Glenum, Lara and Greenberg, Arielle, ed. Gurlesque: The New Grrly, Grotesque, Burlesque Poetics. Saturnalia Books, 2010.Google Scholar

Goodman, Lizzie. “Is Cleo Wade the Millennial Oprah?” The Cut, December 12, 2016, www.thecut.com/2016/12/cleo-wade-instagram-poet.html Google Scholar

Gray, Jeffrey and Keniston, Ann. “Introduction: Contemporary Poetry and the Public Sphere.” The News from Poems: Essays on the 21st-century American Poetry of Engagement, edited by Gray, Jeffrey and Keniston, Ann. University of Michigan Press, 2016, pp. 1–10.Google Scholar

Greenberg, Arielle. “Some (of My) Problems with the Gurlesque.” Evening Will Come: A Monthly Journal of Poetics, no. 38, February 2014, www.thevolta.org/ewc38-agreenberg-p1.html Google Scholar

Greenberg, Arielle. “Feminist Poetics, in Waves: Part 2.” American Poetry Review, September/October 2013, pp. 39–41.Google Scholar

Greenberg, Arielle. “Notes on the Origin of the (Term) Gurlesque.” Gurlesque: Gurlesque: The New Grrly, Grotesque, Burlesque Poetics, edited by Glenum, Lara and Greenberg, Arielle. Saturnalia Books, 2010, pp. 1–8.Google Scholar

Greenberg, Arielle. “On the Gurlesque.” Small Press Traffic, April 2003, www.smallpresstraffic.org/article/on-the-gurlesque Google Scholar

Greenberg, Arielle and Zucker, Rachel, editors. Women Poets on Mentorship: Efforts and Affections. University of Iowa Press, 2008.Google Scholar

Groskop, Viv. “Rape Joke: What Is Patricia Lockwood’s Poem Really Saying?” The Guardian, July 26, 2013, www.theguardian.com/society/shortcuts/2013/jul/26/patricia-lockwood-poem-rape-joke Google Scholar

Hahn, Kimiko. “Foreign Body.” Poetry Foundation, July/August 2017, www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/142874/foreign-body Google Scholar

Hammad, Suheir. “First Writing Since.” HOW2 vol. 1, no. 8, 2002, www.asu.edu/pipercwcenter/how2journal/archive/online_archive/v1_8_2002/current/forum/hammad.htm Google Scholar

Harrington, Joseph. “The Politics of Docupoetry.” The News from Poems: Essays on the 21st Century American Poetry of Engagement, edited by Gray, Jeffrey and Keniston, Ann. University of Michigan Press, 2016, pp. 67–83.Google Scholar

Hofer, Jen. “Materiality: Mortality: Notes on the Making and Context of ‘Uncovering: A Quilted Poem Made From Donated and Foraged From Wendover, Utah.’” Alligatorzine vol. 127, 2012, www.alligatorzine.be/pages/101/zine127_01.html Google Scholar

Hong, Cathy Park. “Happy Days.” The Paris Review, no. 211, Winter 2014, www.theparisreview.org/poetry/6684/happy-days-cathy-park-hong Google Scholar

Hunt, Erica and Martin, Dawn Lundy, editors. Letters to the Future: Black Women/Radical Writing. Kore Press, 2018.Google Scholar

Jarnot, Lisa. Ring of Fire. Salt, 2003.Google Scholar

Kapil, Bhanu. Ban en Bailieue. Nightboat Books, 2015.Google Scholar

Keller, Lynn. “An Interview with Myung Mi Kim.” Contemporary Literature vol. 49, no. 3, 2008, pp. 335–356.CrossRef Google Scholar

Kim, Myung Mi. “Anacrusis.” HOW2 vol. 1, no.2, 1999, www.asu.edu/pipercwcenter/how2journal/archive/online_archivev1_2_1999/current/readings/kim.html Google Scholar

Kim, Myung Mi. Commons. University of California Press, 2002.Google Scholar

Kim, Myung Mi. Penury. Omnidawn, 2009.Google Scholar

King, Amy. “The Gurlesque.” Amyking.org, May 29, 2010, https://amyking.org/2010/03/29/the-gurlesque/Google Scholar

Kotz, Liz and Myles, Eileen, editors. The New Fuck You: Adventures in Lesbian Reading. MIT Press, 1995.Google Scholar

Kuppers, Petra. PearlStitch. Spuyten Duyvil, 2016.Google Scholar

Lockwood, Patricia. “Rape Joke.” Studies in Gender and Sexuality vol. 18, no. 4, 2017, pp. 299–301.Google Scholar

Lockwood, Patricia. “Sexts from Patricia Lockwood.” Rhizome, January 24, 2012, https://rhizome.org/editorial/2012/jan/24/patricia-lockwood/Google Scholar

Long Soldier, Layli. “From Whereas,” Poetry Foundation, January 2017, www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/91697/from-whereas Google Scholar

Long Soldier, Layli. “Layli Long Soldier: The Freedom of Real Apologies.” On Being with Krista Tippett, March 30, 2017, https://onbeing.org/programs/layli-long-soldier-the-freedom-of-real-apologies-oct2018/Google Scholar

Martin, Dawn Lundy. Life in a Box Is a Pretty Life. Nightboat Books, 2015.Google Scholar

McBean, Sam. Feminism’s Queer Temporalities. Routledge, 2015.Google Scholar

Milne, Heather. Poetry Matters: Neoliberalism, Affect, and the Posthuman in Twenty-First-Century North American Feminist Poetics. University of Iowa Press, 2018.Google Scholar

Minnis, Chelsey. “Wench.” Gurlesque: The New Grrly, Grotesque, Burlesque Poetics, edited by Glenum, Lara and Greenberg, Arielle. Saturnalia Books, 2010, pp. 120–121.Google Scholar

Morris, Tracie. “A Little.” Penn Sound, http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Morris.php Google Scholar

Morris, Tracie. “Chain Gang,” http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Morris.php Google Scholar

Morris, Tracie. “The Mrs. Gets Her Ass Kicked.” Penn Sound, http://writing.upenn.edu/pennsound/x/Morris.php Google Scholar

Morris, Tracie. “Artist to Artist: Queen Godl Interviews Tracie Morris about Poetry, Performance and East New York.” Creative Capital, February 18, 2014, https://creative-capital.org/2014/02/18/artist-to-artist-queen-godis-tracie-morris/Google Scholar

Mullen, Harryette. Sleeping with the Dictionary. University of California Press, 2002.Google Scholar

Myers, Lily. “Shrinking Women.” Uploaded by Button Poetry, www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQucWXWXp3k Google Scholar

Myers, Morgan. Review of Gurlesque: The New Grrly, Grotesque, Burlesque Poetics. Rain Taxi, Summer 2010, www.raintaxi.com/gurlesque-the-new-grrly-grotesque-burlesque-poetics/Google Scholar

Nelson, Maggie. Bluets. Wave Books, 2009.Google Scholar

Oliver, Akilah. A Toast in the House of Friends. Coffee House Press, 2009.Google Scholar

O’Sullivan, Maggie, editor. Out of Everywhere: Linguistically Innovative Poetry by Women in North America and the UK. Reality Street, 1996.Google Scholar

Osman, Jena. Public Figures. Wesleyan University Press, 2012.Google Scholar

Pafunda, Danielle. “Fable.” Gurlesque: The New Grrly, Grotesque, Burlesque Poetics, edited by Glenum, Lara and Greenberg, Arielle. Saturnalia Books, 2010, p. 128.Google Scholar

Place, Vanessa. “Rape Jokes.” Studies in Gender and Sexuality vol. 18, no. 4, 2017, pp. 260–268.Google Scholar

Place, Vanessa. “Conceptualism is Feminism,” www.academia.edu/2778773/Conceptualism_is_feminism Google Scholar

Prevallet, Kristin. Shadow Evidence Investigation. Factory School, 2006.Google Scholar

Queen, Khadijah. I’m So Fine: A List of Famous Men & What I Had On. Yes Yes Books, 2017.Google Scholar

Rankine, Claudia. Citizen: An American Lyric. Graywolf Press, 2014.Google Scholar

Rankine, Claudia and Sewell, Lisa, editors. Eleven More American Women Poets in the 21st Century. Wesleyan University Press, 2012.Google Scholar

Rankine, Claudia and Spahr, Juliana, editors. American Women Poets in the 21st Century: Where Lyric Meets Language. Wesleyan University Press, 2002.Google Scholar

Reilly, Evelyn. “Environmental Dreamscapes and Ecopoetic Grief.” Omniverse, http://omniverse.us/evelyn-reilly-environmental-dreamscapes-and-ecopoetic-grief/Google Scholar

Reyes, Barbara Jane. “On Feminism, Women of Color, Poetics, and Reticence: Some Considerations.” A Megaphone: Some Enactments, Some Numbers, and Some Essays about the Continued Usefulness of Crotchless-pants-and-a-machine-gun Feminism, edited by Spahr, Juliana and Young, Stephanie. Chainlinks, 2011, pp. 335–342.Google Scholar

Reyes, Barbara Jane. Invocation to Daughters. City Lights Books, 2017.Google Scholar

Russo, Mary. The Female Grotesque: Risk, Excess, Modernity. Routledge 1994.Google Scholar

Salgado, Yesika. “How Not to Make Love to a Fat Girl.” Uploaded by Button Poetry, www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHHoKC-xZXc Google Scholar

Samuels, Lisa. Anti M. Chax Press, 2013.Google Scholar

Sand, Kaia. “She Had Her Own Reason for Participating.” KaiaSand.net, http://kaiasand.net/she-had-her-own-reasons/Google Scholar

Savageau, Cheryl. Mother/Land. Salt Publishing, 2006.Google Scholar

Scappettone, Jennifer. From Dame Quickly. Litmus Press, 2009.Google Scholar

Scappettone, Jennifer. “Bachelorettes, Even: Strategic Embodiment in Contemporary Experimentalism by Women,” Modern Philology vol. 105, no. 1, 2007, pp. 178–184.CrossRef Google Scholar

Schultz, Susan M. Memory Cards: Simone Weil Series. Equipage, 2017.Google Scholar

Selby, Nick. “Mythologies of ‘Ecstatic Immersion’: America, the Poem, and the Ethics of Lyric in Jorie Graham and Lisa Jarnot.” American Mythologies: New Essays on Contemporary Literature, edited by Blazek, William and Glenday, Michael K.. Liverpool University Press, 2005, pp. 202–225.Google Scholar

Shockley, Evie. the new black. Wesleyan University Press, 2011.Google Scholar

Sloan, Mary Margaret, ed. Moving Borders: Three Decades of Innovative Writing by Women. Talisman House, 1998.Google Scholar

Somers-Willett, Susan. The Cultural Politics of Slam Poetry: Race, Identity and the Performance of Popular Verse in America. University of Michigan Press, 2009.Google Scholar

Spahr, Juliana. This Connection of Everyone with Lungs. University of California Press, 2005.Google Scholar

Spahr, Juliana. “Introduction.” American Women Poets of the 21st Century: Where Lyric Meets Language, edited by Rankine, Claudia and Spahr, Juliana. Wesleyan University Press, 2002, pp. 1–17.Google Scholar

Spahr, Juliana and Young., Stephanie “Foulipo.” A Megaphone: Some Enactments, Some Numbers, and Some Essays about the Continued Usefulness of Crotchless-plants-and-a-machine-gun Feminism, edited by Spahr, Juliana and Young, Stephanie. Chainlinks, 2011, pp. 31–42.Google Scholar

Spahr, Juliana and Young., Stephanie “Numbers Trouble.” Chicago Review vol. 53, no. 2–3, 2007, pp. 88–111.Google Scholar

Swensen, Cole. “Introduction.” American Hybrid: A North Anthology of New Poetry, edited by Swensen, Cole and St. John, David. W. W. Norton, 2009, pp. xvii–xxvi.Google Scholar

Tabios, Eileen. “I Do.” Poetry Foundation, www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/53813/i-do Google Scholar

Thaggert, Miriam. “Black Modernist Feminism and This Contemporary Moment: Evie Shockley’s the New Black.” Feminist Modernist Studies vol. 1, no. 1–2, 2017, pp. 44–50.Google Scholar

Toth, Naomi. “Echo’s Echoes, or What to Do with Vanessa Place.” Jacket2, May 1, 2018, https://jacket2.org/article/echos-echoes-or-what-do-vanessa-place Google Scholar

Trask, Haunani-Kay. “Feminism and Indigenous Hawaiian Nationalism.” Signs vol. 21, no. 4, 1996, pp. 906–916.Google Scholar

Trask, Haunani-Kay. Light in the Crevice Never Seen. Calyx Books, 1999.Google Scholar

Trask, Haunani-Kay. From a Native Daughter: Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawai’i. University of Hawai’i Press, 1993.Google Scholar

Volkman, Karen. “Sonnet (Nothing was ever what it claimed to be).” Poets.org, www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/sonnet-nothing-was-ever-what-it-claimed-be Google Scholar

Wade, Cleo. “Poet Cleo Wade’s Powerful Tribute to Gloria Steinem, Coretta Scott King, and More on International Women’s Day.” W Magazine, March 8, 2017, www.wmagazine.com/story/cleo-wade-poem-international-womens-day Google Scholar

Wade, Cleo. Heart Talk: Poetic Wisdom for a Better Life. Atria/37 INK, 2018.Google Scholar

Wagner, Catherine. “This Is a Fucking Poem.” My New Job. Fence, 2009.Google Scholar

Wagner, Catherine. “Post-Marginal Positions: Women and the UK Experimental/Avant-Garde Poetry Community: A Cross-Atlantic Forum.” Jacket no. 34, 2007, http://jacketmagazine.com/34/wagner-forum.shtml Google Scholar

Wheeler, Lesley. “A Salon with a Revolving Door: Virtual Community and the Space of Wom-Po.” Contemporary Women’s Writing vol. 7 no. 1, 2013, pp. 54–72.Google Scholar

Wiley, Rachel. “10 Honest Thoughts on Being Loved by a Skinny Boy.” Uploaded by Button Poetry, www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRFOTqTicvY Google Scholar

Willis, Elizabeth. “The Arena in the Garden: Some Thoughts on the Late Lyric.” Telling It Slant: Avant-Garde Poetics of the 1990s, edited by Wallace, Mark and Marks, Steven. University of Alabama Press, 2002, pp. 225–235.Google Scholar

Young, Morris. “Beyond Rainbows: What Hawai’i’s ‘Local’ Poetry Has Taught Me About Pedagogy.” Poetry and Pedagogy: The Challenge of the Contemporary, edited by Retallack, Joan and Spahr, Juliana. Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, pp. 105–128.Google Scholar

Yu, Timothy, editor. Nests and Strangers: On Asian American Women Poets. Kelsey Street Press, 2015.Google Scholar