Poems from the Women's Movement (American Poets Project) (Hardcover)

~ Honor Moore (Editor)

Editorial Reviews

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*Starred Review* In 1965, Sylvia Plath’s posthumous Ariel took the literary world by storm with its fierce and undeniably female voice. For the next 15 years, America saw a historic outpouring of women’s poetry supported by and supporting the women’s movement. As editor Moore points out, poetry was vital to the movement, articulating previously unexpressed lives, empowering others as the poets found their own power. The young women then—their fervent beauty is well captured in the cover image—are grandmothers now; their feminism was declared unfashionable years ago, though abuses they sought to correct continue. Women poets are still read, reviewed, and taught less often than their male counterparts, and young women writers avoid seeming “strident,” a literary crime apparently worse than throttling the muse in the service of worldly ambition. Into such circumstances these direct, vibrant, potent, passionate, wild, strong, free, and freeing poems come less like a breath of fresh air than a strong wind. Women of that era will remember Marge Piercy’s “Rape Poem,” (“Rape fattens on the fantasies of the normal male / like a maggot in garbage”), Adrienne Rich’s “Diving into the Wreck” (“I come to explore the wreck. / The words are purposes. / The words are maps”), and Rita Mae Brown’s “Sappho’s Reply” (“An army of lovers shall not fail”). And all who missed these missiles and epistles then will find them still demanding and invigorating. --Patricia Monaghan

Product Description

THE WOMEN’S MOVEMENT OF THE 1960s, 70s, AND 80s generated an extraordinary outpouring of poetry that captured an age of expectancy, of defiant purpose, and exuberant exploration. Here, brought together for the first time, are the poems that gave voice to a revolution, including works by Sylvia Plath, Adrienne Rich, Muriel Rukeyser, Anne Sexton, Sonia Sanchez, Lucille Clifton, May Swenson, Alice Walker, Anne Waldman, Sharon Olds, and many others.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 200 pages
• Publisher: Library of America (April 2, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1598530429
• ISBN-13: 978-1598530421
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 4.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: No customer reviews yet. Be the first.
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #82,594 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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