Eleven More American Women Poets in the 21st Century: Poetics Across North America

Mary Jo Bang

eleven more american women poets in the 21st century The American Poets in the 21st Century Series volume 1 American Women Poets in the 21st Century: Where Lyric Meets Language Claudia Rankine and Juliana Spahr, eds. volume 2 American Poets in the 21st Century: The New Poetics Claudia Rankine and Lisa Sewell, eds. volume 3 Eleven More American Women Poets in the 21st Century: Poetics across North America Claudia Rankine and Lisa Sewell, eds. Eleven More American Women Poets in the 21st Century Poetics across North America Edited by Claudia Rankine and Lisa Sewell Wesleyan University Press · Middletown, Connecticut Wesleyan University Press Middletown CT 06459 www.wesleyan.edu/wespress© 2012 by Wesleyan University Press All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America Designed by Dennis Anderson and Scott Cahoon Typeset in Sabon and The Sans Light by Passumpsic Publishing Wesleyan University Press is a member of the Green Press Initiative. The paper used in this book meets their minimum requirement for recycled paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Eleven more American women poets in the 21st century: poetics across North America / edited by Claudia Rankine and Lisa Sewell. p. cm.—(Wesleyan poetry) Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-0-8195-7234-9 (cloth: alk. paper)— isbn 978-0-8195-7235-6 (pbk.: alk. paper)— isbn 978-0-8195-7236-3 (ebook) 1. American poetry—Women authors. 2. Women—United States—Poetry. 3. American poetry—21st century. I. Rankine, Claudia, 1963– II. Sewell, Lisa. III. Title: American women poets in the twenty-first century. ps589.e44 2012 811'.60809287—dc23 2011043613 5 4 3 2 1 Audio clips of many of the poems in this book are available at the book’s companion website: www.wesleyan.edu/wespress/aptc3. contents Acknowledgments xi Introduction 1 MARY JO BANG 19 poems From The Eye Like A Strange Balloon High Art 19 Mrs. Autumn and Her Two Daughters 21 Untitled # 70 (Or, The Question of Remains) 22 From Elegy Landscape with the Fall of Icarus 23 Words 24 From The Bride of E And as in Alice 25 B Is for Beckett 26 C Is for Cher 26 In the Present and Probable Future 27 From the Mrs. Dalloway series Opened and Shut 29 poetics statement 30 articulations of artifice in the work of mary jo bang 34 by Karla Kelsey LUCILLE CLIFTON 60 poems From Good Woman: Poems and a Memoir 1969–1980 [the light that came to Lucille Clifton] 60 From Quilting eve’s version 61 lucifer speaks in his own voice 61 From The Book of Light daughters 62 [won’t you celebrate with me] 63 leda 1 64 leda 3 65 vi | Contents From The Terrible Stories telling our stories 65 From Mercy the river between us 65 From Voices sorrows 66 poetics statement Excerpts from an Interview with Charles Rowell 67 lucille clifton’s communal “i” 68 by Adrienne McCormick KIMIKO HAHN 96 poems From Mosquito and Ant Orchid Root 96 Garnet 98 From The Narrow Road to the Interior Utica Station Dep.10:07 a.m. to N.Y. Penn Station 99 From The Artist’s Daughter In Childhood 104 Like Lavrinia 104 poetics statement Still Writing the Body 107 “i want to go where the hysteric resides” Kimiko Hahn’s Re-Articulation of the Feminine in Poetry 110 by Zhou Xiaojing CARLA HARRYMAN 127 poems From Baby [Now. Word. Technology.] 127 [Dark. Swat. Land.] 128 [The. Open. Box.] 129 [Baby. N. Baseball. Song.] 130 [Wartime Surroundings.] 131 From Adorno’s Noise [consents to a few statements one knows ultimately to implicate murder] 132 [it is difficult to write satire] 134 [the opposite of slackness] 135 Contents | vii poetics statement Siren 136 listening in on carla harryman’s baby by Christine Hume 142 ERÍN MOURE 161 poems From O Cidadán document32 (inviolable) 161 document33 (arena) 162 Eleventh Impermeable of the Carthage of Harms 163 From Little Theatres Theatre of the Confluence (A Carixa) 164 Theatre of the Stones that Ran (Fontao, 1943) 165 Theatre of the Millo Seco (Botos) 166 From O Cadoiro [[T]he best woman i ever saw.] 167 [This night of liquid storms, high noon s dwelling] 168 poetics statement A Practice of Possibility, a Life in Languages 169 moure’s abrasions 171 by Aaron Kunin LAURA MULLEN 189 poems From The Surface 189 From The Tales of Horror (A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody...