ATTENTION ALL:::Representation of Women

[optimisticnad]

Hello all.

I have to produce an annotated anthology of poems under the theme 'representation of women' in poetry, focusing on the male artists (but females welcome too)

Any ideas? Do any specific poems come to mind as you read this? I would be extremely grateful for any feedback. I hope this isn't one of those threads that gets 100 views and only one reply! Maybe iv jinxed it now.

And the artists have to be british! that's the catch! or at least living/lived in britain and wrote in english.

[mir]

okay then . . . well, i certainly don't know much about this, but you could always use the Canterbury tales, that's full of stuff. especially the Wife of Bath's tale. or just google "British poem about women" or something like that; i was trying to do that and find you some stuff but my computer crashed, so i guess you have to.

[Xamonas Chegwe]

A few off the top of the old brain: -

Tennyson - Mariana, Maud and Lady of Shallot.
Marvell - To His Coy Mistress.
John Wilmot: Earl of Rochester - A Song of a Young Lady to her Ancient Lover and The Mistress.
Almost anything that is not religious by John Donne, especially The Flea, To His Mistress Going to Bed and The Will (which was discussed at length in the Poem of the Week thread recently).
Any number of Shakespeare's sonnets.

If you want a female POV, take a look at Aphra Behn, Elizabeth Barrett Browning or Christina Rosetti.

Hope this helps, but without knowing exactly what you want, there is such a lot of choice.

[blp]

Portrait of a Lady by Eliot seems an obvious choice.

I also recommend this one by Tom Raworth:

My Face is My Own I Thought


morning he had gone
down to the village a figure
she still recognized from his walk

nothing
he had explained
is won by arguing things are changed
only by power
and cunning she still sat
meaning to ask what
did you say ? echo in her ears

he might just have finished speaking so
waiting and
taking the scissors
began to trim off the baby's fingers

[Jay]

The Eve of St. Agnes - John Keats (http://www.bartleby.com/126/39.html)

[miss tenderness]

i have a nice poem but it's more comic ,do u welcom dat dude?

[IrishCanadian]

Almost any poem by Edgar Allan Poe. Not quite all, but most.

[optimisticnad]

miss tenderness: yep comic welcomed too. this 'dude' welcomes all.

[Nightshade]

Keats La belle Dame sans merci.
Acttually optamistic if you live in the uk your school library should have a copy of the english and literature magazine. if you can get hold of a copy of last years they had an article on the feminiist take on this poem... if yoyu cant pm me and I might be able to dig my copy out if I havent thrown it out with my folder.

Well there is also Kiplings the female of the spieces.
And If women could be fair and yet not fond by Edward de Vere ( earl of oxford so if you are hunting through indexs in books try under oxford)

I also have an extract of a don Marquis Archy and mehitabel that is amusing but I cant figer out exactly where it comes from so Im guessing i wont be much use to you :D

[Scheherazade]

Hi Nad,

I know you are mainly looking for poems by male poets but you might find Pam Ayres' work interesting. She writes very interesting and funny poems (mostly about women). Here are some:


Heaps of Stuff

How I wish that I was tidy
How I wish that I was neat
How I wish I was methodical
Like others down out street.
I tried to stem the rising tide
I tried to hold it back
But I have been the victim
Of a heap of stuff attack.

Yes, heaps of stuff come creeping,
They clutter up the hall.
And heaps of stuff are softly
Climbing halfway up the wall.
At each end of the staircase
Is a giant heap, a stack;
One to carry up the stairs
And one to carry back.

In a heap of stuff invasion
They settle everywhere -
They grovel on the lino
They tower on the chair.
You're searching for a jacket,
"Is it in here?" you shout,
And, opening the cupboard door,
A heap of stuff falls out.

But heaps are many-faceted
And heaps are multi-faced
And what a heap is made of
Will depend on where it's placed.
Now if it's in the passage
It is mostly boots and shoes
And if it's on the sofa
It is magazines and news.

If it's in the shed
It's broken propagating frames
And if it's in the bathroom
Well, it's best to say no names,
And if it's in the bedroom -
Your own and not the guest's -
The heap of stuff is mostly made
Of socks and shirts and vests.

For a heap is indestructible,
It's something you can't fight.
If you split it up by day
It joins back up at night.
So cunningly positioned
as from room to room you trek,
Increasing all the chances
That you trip and break your neck.

But step into my parlour
Now I've forced the door ajar;
I'll excavate an easy chair -
Just cling there where you are.
And together we'll survey it
Till our eyes they feast enough
On the tidiest home in England
Underneath the heaps of stuff.


The Wonderbra

I bought myself a Wonderbra
For fourteen ninety nine,
It looked so good on the model girl's chest,
And I hoped it would on mine,
I took it from the packaging
And when I tried it on,
The Wonderbra restored to me
All I believed had gone

Chorus:
Let's all salute the Wonderbra,
The Wonderbra, the Wonderbra,
Let's all salute the Wonderbra,
For fourteen ninety-nine.

It gave me such a figure,
I can't believe it's mine,
I showed it to my husband
And it made his eyeballs shine,
And when I served the breakfast,
The kids cried out, 'Hooray!
Here comes our darling mother,
with her bosom on a tray!'

I didn't really need one,
my present bra, it's true,
Had only been in constant use
Since nineteen eighty-two,
But the silhouette I dreamed about,
Is mine, is mine at last,
And builders on the scaffolding,
Drop off as I walk past

Chorus:
Singing .. let's all salute the Wonderbra,
The Wonderbra, the Wonderbra,
Let's all salute the Wonderbra
For fourteen ninety-nine!


YES, I'LL MARRY YOU

Yes, I'll marry you, my dear.
And here's the reason why.
So I can push you out of bed
When the baby starts to cry.
And if we hear a knocking
And it's creepy and it's late,
I hand you the torch you see,
And you investigate.

Yes I"ll marry you, my dear,
You may not apprehend it,
But when the tumble-drier goes
It's you that has to mend it.
You have to face the neighbour
Should our labrador attack him,
And if a drunkard fondles me
It's you that has to whack him.

Yes, I'll marry you,
You're virile and you're lean,
My house is like a pigsty
You can help to keep it clean.
That sexy little dinner
Which you served by candlelight,
As I do chipolatas,
You can cook it every night!!!

It's you who has to work the drill
And put up curtain track,
And when I've got PMT it's you who gets the flak,
I do see great advantages,
But none of them for you,
And so before you see the light,
I DO, I DO, I DO!!

[Scheherazade]

How about Shakespeare's Sonnet CXXX:

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red:
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound.
I grant I never saw a goddess go:
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.


And not to disappoint those who have been waiting for me to post some e.e. cummings:

somewhere i have never travelled

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

[Virgil]

One thing's for sure, I salute the wonderbra.

[jackyyyy]

One thing's for sure, I salute the wonderbra.
If that was a superbra, it would salute you! :lol:

[kilted exile]

The true wonder of the wonderbra comes when the woman removes it and you are left wondering where her breasts have gone.

[Nightshade]

excuse me?? Surley they dont make that much of a differance...

got to say though the wonderbra poem is my favouirte of the lot make a good advert, was it ever used like that?

[Truth Untold]

this thread is possibly out of date but i would suggest some of Blakes Songs of Innocence and Experience his comments on woemn include - pointless chastity, repression, abuse innocence kept and lost etc etc

[britomart]

There's some cracking stuff in Spenser - let me know if you want to know more.

[Petrarch's Love]

A fellow Spenserian! Sorry to stray from the topic at hand for the nonce, but I had to give my greetings to anyone cool enough to pick "Britomart" for her screen name. Welcome fair and martial maiden. :)

[britomart]

Aha - I'm a man (in body anyway . . . ), so there's your first Spenserian surprise and I didn't even have to take my armour off. We mustn't hijack this thread with Spenser though, but must catch each other's critical faculties elsewhere. My time is limited on net and must dash now, see you tomorrow.

[Petrarch's Love]

So Britomart's a man. And all this time I'd thought Malecasta just made a really stupid mistake! You're right that we musn't hijack this thread. I was going to suggest we go to the Spenser section of the individual authors forum, but then I realized, much to my indignation, that Spenser isn't included, so I've started a little thread here on the poetry forum titled "A Theatre for Spenserians" where we, or anyone else interested in Spenser can chat.

[britomart]

I'm just popping over now