Often singled out as one of the key female figures of the Beat movement – with her Loba, an epic-length collection of over 200 poems, frequently viewed as the feminist counterpart to Ginsberg’s Howl – Diane di Prima is certainly very feminist in her writing. Loba presents itself as a sort of creation myth that […]
Author Archive | Kathleen C
Seeing History in Harper’s “American History”
Michael S. Harper, Image Source: africanamerianpoetry.orgMichael S. Harper’s poem “American History” is a haunting nine line poem. The poem’s use of concrete images coupled with it’s compact brevity works to speak not only to America’s racist past, but of also to the treatment of history in America. The poem opens with reference to the Baptist […]
“Babydoll”- An Imitation of Perelman’s “Chronic Meanings”
Babydoll I can’t quite hear you. It’s hard to say how. Everything is fast and slow. I think you are someone. A loud silence, the dawn. The sound of rushing toward. Everything is quiet when my. Sitting on the bed before. On the couch, we both. I’ll call as soon as. But first […]
“Lady Bertilak in the Chapel” – A Creative Imitation of Julia Alvarez
Lady Bertilak in the Chapel We walk, the witch woman at my wing, wending through the high hall. Here is the hapless hero, hunting for his honor which will hang by a thread. The head of my husband, who will have me hanging by this poor man’s bed, is hiding right in front of him. […]
Bridging the Gap in Carolyn Rodgers’ Poetry
In her writing on Carolyn Rodgers’ collection of poetry How I Got Ovah, Estella M. Sales examines Rodgers’ use of the phrase “how I got ovah” and its illustration of double meaning in Rodgers’ poetry. Sales begins by noting the traditional meaning of the “black colloquialism” as “how one has triumphed spiritually; how one has […]
Images of Fertility, Pregnancy, and Motherhood in Sylvia Plath’s “Elm”
Sylvia Plath, one of the most regarded poets of the Confessional school of poetry was certainly no stranger to baring her emotions on the page. Indeed, a hallmark of the confessional school is, as Deborah Nelson points out, is the “urgency and ‘rawness’ of the revelations” being put forth (34). Plath often grapples with the […]
Raining, October
A drop falls at my feet as I walk along the […]
Meeting Death on Cole’s Island
Charles Olson is often regarded as the founder of the Black Mountain School of poetry which widely applies what John Osbourne calls a “peculiarly energized version of free verse” (170), known as “projective verse.” In Olson’s manifesto “Projective Verse,” he speaks at length on the idea of projective verse and open form poetry. As Cary […]
The Mythopoeia of Diane Di Prima
In the introduction to his book Diane Di Prima: Visionary Poetics and the Hidden Religions, David Stephen Calonne outlines the many influences present in Diane Di Prima’s body of work. Di Prima, whose poetry is typically classified as part of the Beat school, resisted the title, as Calonne points out, […]