|
Excerpt from"On a Line from Valéry (The Gulf War) "Le dernier arbre brûle. The whole green sky is dying. The last tree flares With a great burst of supernatural rose Under a canopy of poisonous airs. Could we imagine our return to prayers To end in time before time's final throes, The green sky dying as the last tree flares? Carolyn Kizer at the Academy of American Poets How can a poet like Kizer manage to reclaim the tradition of her circumscribed, neglected literary foremothers without compromising her own strength? The poems themselves can best answer these questions. In "Bitch," for instance, the speaker takes the image of a bitch literally during a scene where she encounters an ex-lover. This inner "bitch," whom the speaker takes very firmly in hand but cannot ignore, might share some characteristics with the stereotypical lovelorn poetess:At a kind word from him, a look like the old days, The bitch changes her tone: she begins to whimper. She wants to snuggle up to him, to cringe. Down, girl! Keep your distance Or I'll give you a taste of the choke-chain.The bitch, who is "too demonstrative, too clumsy, / Not like the well-groomed pets of his new friends," "gag[s]" at her mistress's polite hypocrisy while being dragged "off by the scruff," and the poem ends on a note of grudging respect for her. |