"The Woman I Am In My Dreams" The woman I am in my dreams is taller than I am and sees the world as she walks unlike me with eyes on every step with eyes ever and always on the ground that woman walks only when she feels like not running not jogging the woman I am in my dreams lifts one leg effortlessly over the other crosses them high up on the knee the hip the thigh not just at the ankle like I do. The woman I am in my dreams breaks all the rules about shoes wears them high and red with killer spike heels moves from Nikes to spikes and the kind of pumps that go with a dress and having your hair done. The woman I am in my dreams her legs are straight and sure they don't fly out from under her they don't hide under long skirts her legs and feet are well they speak for her in footsteps on the road they laugh at hills and at rolling, unforgiving gravel they dialogue with ice and snow and they always win that argument the woman I am in my dreams I wake up and carry part of her with me everywhere.

Can I be evil for a moment and say I don't like this? That I'm so tired of reading women's poetry about breaking free and standing tall and all that tired imagery, as if writing about that is all it takes to be a woman poet? That I've never read a poem with this message that was written by a man? That this poem is all craft and no art? That I fail to be inspired and am instead filled with contempt? That if you really want to break free and stand tall you go out and do it, not write about it? That writing is never a substitute for action? Give me Denise Levertov, Elizabeth Bishop, Margaret Holley, Margaret Atwood, Louise Gluck, Gjertrude Schnackenberg. Those women can write a fucking poem.

don't forget edna s v m

Oh, right! And Marianne Moore. [So while staying out of the brawl going on in the "maybe the whitefolks here..." board, I'm dealing with my own rage (poetry-rage, that is) over in this corner. Join in the fun!]

In the immortal words of Rodney Anonymous: "God I hate poetry. No Art! No ART! NO ART!" You are invited to Blood Orgy of the Atomic Fern, by the way. Bring something yuo can burn.

Ooh! Where? When?

Hey, you don't have to love the thing, but don't be mean about it. Personally, I think it's lovely. Not all Tynes' poems are about "gee, lookit me! I'm strong!", but of all the ones of hers I've read, this one is my favorite, because I can sympathize. I don't see it as a strongwoman/weakwoman type thing, either. She just seems so shy and unsure of herself in this one. I can relate. I'd also like to state for the record that telling someone to stop writing about what's on their mind and "go ahead and Do something about it!" is ridiculous since, in a way, by writing about it, they Are doing something about it. They may not be doing what You would do in their place, but they're doing something. Here's another y'all probably won't like: "What Do I Remember Of The Evacuation?" -Joy Kogawa- What do I remember of the evacuation? I remember my father telling Tim and me About the mountains and the train And the excitment of going on a trip. What do I remember of the evacuation? I remember my mother wrapping A blanket around me and my Pretending to fall asleep so she would be happy Although I was so excited I couldn't sleep (I hear there were people herded Into the Hastings Park like cattle. Families were made to move in two hours Abandoning everything, leaving pets And possessions at gun point. I hear families were broken up Men were forced to work. I heard It whispered late at night That there was suffering) and I missed my dolls. What do I remember of the evacuation? I remember Miss Foster and Miss Tucker Who still live in Vancouver And who did what they could And loved the children and who gave me A puzzle to play with on the train. And I remember the mountains and I was Six years old and I swear I saw a giant Gulliver of Gulliver's Travels scanning the horizon And when I told my mother she believed it too And I remember how careful my parents were Not to bruse us with bitterness And I remember the puzzle of Lorraine Life Who said "Don't insult me" when I Proudly wrote my name in Japanese And Tim flew the Union Jack When the war was over but Lorraine And her friends spat on us anyway and I prayed to the God who loves All the children in his sight That I might be white.

you are evil Rhiannon, but I also agree. howz about Anne Sexton for fem poetry.....my wife read these to me after the first time we got it on, or I should say "made love"...we had fucked numerous times before..... this has stuck with me for the last five years.. When Man Enters Woman When man, enters woman, like the surf biting the shore, again and again, and the woman opens her mouth with pleasure and her teeth gleam like the alphabet, Logos appears milking a star, and the man inside of woman ties a knot so that they will never again be separate and the woman climbs into a flower and swallows its stem and Logos appears and unleashes their rivers. This man, this woman with their double hunger, have tried to reach through the curtain of God and briefly they have, though God in His perversity unties the knot.

I don't really like Anne Sexton, either, but that was good. Ol' Anne's not nearly as irritating as that Plath woman. Don't even get me started on her! My fav. poets are W.S. Merwin, Mark Strand, and Charles Wright. It's only coincidental that they're guys. And old guys at that.

thats a shame, i lean heavily towards women writes/poets especially those who are sexually liberated enough to write about it. As a male, i find it an intriguing and appealing to look inside a woman's psyche, especially regarding sexuality.

I guess having a woman's psyche makes me comparatively less interested in exploring the feminine mystique, if you will. Men's, on the other hand -- Galway Kinnell has written some nice stuff exploring masculine sexuality. Though so has Charles Bukowski, and after reading him, I'm not sure how much about that topic I really want to know...

this is probably my fav The Fury of Cock-Anne Sexton There they are drooping over the breakfast plates, angel-like, folding in their sad wing, animal sad, and only the night before there they were playing the banjo. Once more the day's light comes with its immense sun, its mother trucks, its engines of amputation. Whereas last night the cock knew its way home, as stiff as a hammer, battering in with all its awful power. That theater. Today it is tender, a small bird, as soft as a baby's hand. She is the house. He is the steeple. When they fuck they are God. When they break away they are God. When they snore they are God. In the morning thet butter the toast. They don't say much. They are still God. All the cocks of the world are God, blooming, blooming, blooming into the sweet blood of woman.

i don't think that rhiannon was being mean, she was expressing her opinion about a piece of poetry. she didn't say that she hated the poet as a person. this is what happens when you allow your art to enter the public eye. i have had people laugh out loud at my artwork with me standing right near it. of course, they didn't know it was mine, but it still hurt my feelings. however, i respect their rights to having an opinion about my work. i can understand completely why some people wouldn't like it, and why they would scoff and say things like, "this is ART?!!" however, i like it, and somebody else is bound to somewhere. one of the great things about all forms of art is that they give people things to think and talk about. if we didn't have opinions about things like this, then we would probably be dead.

Ah, Agatha. You're so sweet. Sure, everyone can have their opinion. I don't think I'd ever tell anyone they couldn't. It was just the whole "writing is no substitute for action" thing that set me off. I don't mean to be flip towards you Rhiannon, but that idea is just a load of crap. As for Anne Sexton...she seems a wee bit pretentious to me. "No Doctors Today, Thank You" -Ogden Nash- They tell me that euphoria is the feeling of feeling wonderful; well, today I feel euphorian, Today I have the agility of a Greek god and the appetite of a Victorian. Yes, today I may even go forth without my galoshes; Today I am a swashbuckler, would anybody like me to buckle any swashes? This is my euphorian day, I will ring welkins and before anybody answers I will run away. I will tame me a caribou And bedeck it with marabou. I will pen me my memoirs. Ah youth, youth! What Euphorian days them was! I wasn't much of a hand for the boudoirs, I was generally to be found where the food was. Does anybody want any flotsam? I've gotsam. Does anybody want any jetsam? I can getsam. I can play "Chopsticks" on the Wurlitzer, I can speak Portuguese like a Berlitzer. I can don or doff my shoes without typing or untying the laces because I am wearing moccasins, And I practically know the difference between serums and antitoccasins. Kind people, don't think me purse-proud, don't set me down as vainglorious, I'm just a little euphorious.

where do you find the pretention Gee? I don't see it.

Last night, I wrote a long response, and then my computer crashed, and I was so disgruntled I just went to bed. I had addressed the writing-as-substitute-for action issue in length. Unfortunately, I can't remember now all the good things I said. But basically: I don't know where you all are coming from. I'm here: Last year I took two semesters of poetry writing at school. And loved it (the above-mentioned Maggie Holley was my professor and she was just the best teacher you could ask for). Anyway, there were girls in my class (and we were all girls) who would write poems like the Maxine Tynes one -- rousing and impassioned and calling for female unity and all that. But I knew these girls. I knew them outside of class. I knew what they did with their free time/ lives/etc. They did nothing concrete to work toward the female unity they were calling for. They just talked about it. I think that's what I'm getting at. Sure, sometimes writing is action -- writing "Howl," for example, was an act that changed poetry. As were the writing of "Song of Myself" and "Four Quartets" and things like that. But it can also be a cop-out. Talk substituting action. Emily Dickinson, holed up in her house, writing about great passion and such, and yet not going out and living it. You have to concede that that does happen sometimes...right? Another thing I wrote in that lost message: To make something a poem takes a whole lot more than spitting your emotions or beliefs onto a page. This is where the art should come in. You have to (and I think "have to" or "must" IS the right phrase) organize your thoughts and words and phrases and images into something beautiful. Otherwise, just write an essay or a letter to an editor. Poetry is an art form. "The moon is shining in the sky" vs. "The moon, like a dead heart, cold and unstartable, hangs from a thread at the world's edge..." [Charles Wright, "Stone Canyon Nocturne"]. This is not to say that poetry has to be complicated. One of my favorite poems is a short one called "Homeland" by W.S. Merwin: The sky goes on living it goes On living the sky With all the barbed wire of the west In its veins And the sun goes down Driving a stake Through the black heart of Andrew Jackson So he has a message, but he frames it in a beautiful (and simple) way. That's all I ask from a poem. That it say something to me and that it say it in an artful way. I don't think I was being mean (evil, maybe, but not mean...) when I said that the Tynes poem didn't do either of those things. That's just what happened

...to me when I read it (or didn't happen, rather). (Sorry that last part got cut off))

I'm sorry to keep posting, but I had to share -- I just read an interview with Charles Wright, and the last thing he says is "Poetry is language that sounds better and means more."

I just know The Charge of the Light Brigade,makes me cry.

I can dig it Rhiannon. I agree with what you said about flakes who yammer on about change and never do anything about it....at all. I mean not everyone has to be an activist, but if they just behave in a way that's the compleat opposit from what they wrote about, then that's phony. As for Maxine Tynes....her poem had an effect on me. Just a mild one, but still there was an effect. Which means Tynes Did do something. You see? Here's another one of hers. I like it a little less, but there are still certain elements that I dig. "Racism" -Maxine Tynes- Racism: the alphabet of that word a metallic absudity on the tongue the cell of its imprisonment slamming down all of your days on all of your life. The cage of racism allowing no life-to-life cross-over to the other side no people to people mind to mind heart to heart. The bite of racism is deep and deep and relentless in its pursuit incising Black and Native and language and gender cultures excising the heart of all that we are. We bleed generations of pain. We heal to hope. We rise to challenge. We shout the imperative. We stride the future. The language of the Black and Native future has no alphabet for racism, has no agenda for it no taste no time no reality. And in some future Black and Native time the rain of racism falls and finds no waiting hearts, finds no ground wanting.

Alright. So I just happened upon all of this and I got caught up in the reading. I've been writing poetry since before I could walk. I'm going to allow myself to step out of the shy shell I pretend I have and voice my opinion. I agree with Rhiannon about the feminists who walk around crying change, grow, change, grow, and then do nothing about it. I believe in strength. This is not strength. This is self-victimization. When we, as women, and as human beings, place our misfortune on some other person, idea or concept, we take away from our own personal power. Whining is no way to fix a situation you are discontent with. Rhiannon, you are more than correct. Some of these girlies need to just get off their asses and do it. I too attended an all woman's college. The patheticness was enough to make me leave.... Of course, that was a few years ago. I'm sure they've all changed by now. (laugh) I do disagree with you about your definition of poetry. Poetry *IS* putting your emotion on paper. It's how you do it that determines wether it's bad or good. But no one, no one except the author him or herself can define wether or not its poetry. If I write something, show it to you.. I say, "Here. This is poetry." Then who are you to argue? You were all playing the name terrific poets game. Check out Robert Hass. He's delish.

This board is so much better than a $120.00 that I used to pay a shrink who used to excuse his self on my paid time probably wacking off,I,m lucky like that.I used to write,everyone has a story to tell,I lost touch with all that a long time ago.You guys make me think about it again.

I agree with you -- poetry is not JUST putting your emotions down. You said it yourself: "it's how you do it." That's what I meant by "spitting" emotions out -- just hurling them from you without any thought of what they look like when they land. But I disagree with you on another point -- all of us should be able to define poetry for ourselves. So all of us should be able to say that what one person calls poetry is not poetry, in their opinion. Or at least call it bad poetry. Do you think there is a difference between the two? (Hmmm. That gives me something to think about while I wait long minutes between phone rings here.)

J, you reminded me of something we learned in class -- there's something called the Common Factor Theory in therapy. Basically, all therapies work to some degree, even though they're all very different. Why? Because just getting things out of your system and talking to someone helps. And in this place you can ramble on and on (like I do so very often) and you can't tell if anyone's bored or not. So you don't feel uncomfortable...you just keep writing. And you feel great. For free!

i am a poet and don't even no it! this poem really sucks, somebody throw a rock at me ATHENS hittin the road, late nights, in late places, saw a lot of concrete and asphalt, watch the miles go by ever seen the midwest at 37? thousand that is, I saw it ain't much road stop ahead athens they call it, hey faces, it's been a while tell me whats the know and tell me now, we have grown and bear gifts, gifts of body and brain ...... of flesh and faux yeah we 've heard it before, we 've even seen it before but let us show you what we do, and have done, better yet go where no man has said he would go I am that no man, and so are you no man, no woman we are the NO don't worry the aperture is focused a watchful eye on all that is caressed touched, bitten, "WOW" I said, to him "DID YOU SEE THAT?" me neither, but the electronic eyes misses not a beat candle wax crotches and mud-stained breasts "did you see what she did to she?" I missed it but the electro-eye got it all I pull on myself as what happens, unfolds screams and tickles white mess trickles.....from everywhere betcha didn't think I would notice, no problem the red and brown mesh give it all away, slippin' and slidin' wet bodies ridin' carnal waves destined never to hit the shore "pour me another drink" she said, "did you see that?" he said I said "no where's my head?" never mind the watchful eye the beep beep and red lights hum as tape after tape catches this great sum...... "it was my first time" she said, "never mind, 'tis mine two.", angels, cherubs, goddesses dancing intertwined... never mind whose first time "make me another drink" he said, shutter is open director's assistant caught with his pants down again... same old story, the boy gone too far... yeah but I make stiff drink just like I make a stiff.......... "well!"....snickers all, we know by now, not even 9 p.m. and you stained something 3 times never mind look at them unwind........ ......swollen, stiff and blood-rushed parts who could stand it, not I said from the start cock in hand all over again, as we find ourselves here .............again.. ...and again...... fingers explore, tongues ignore all of society's lore that smell of rich humanity pervades the smoke filled room of which we all lay ignorant and child-like we play..... never you mind the lens sees all, nothing is left astray... not a single thing, the results I have seen and screened, CUT said the director but my mind kept rolling, reeling....... to this day stealing, every ounce of passion and lust left on that couch, with John, Paul and the rest guiding us on....... you think they noticed, my insecure ass, her insecure this, that and thought doubt it he said to me in a dream last night we had red stained eyes, with green painted bodies, the white on the carpet and cream in the crotches.... ........tainted vision in other words bodies feel warm and frankly pussies feel warmer, as two cats frolic before me , two dogs await in the wings command and conquer and curiosity DID NOT kill these cats... mmmmmmm......that stained couch in the deep south will forever remind me of a time we went deep deep on each other, inside each other , groaning panting painting cumming it was all in formation, "see the way she holds those curves?", imagines my cock said to my brain, never thought you'd see your skirt hold that skirt over the heads that is.............. as the cock said to the brain , "WHAT ARE YA WAITIN FOR AN INVITATION?" brain to the cock, "INVITATION NO, CELEBRATION YES" let me swim in her come and hers and hers and hers, let me revel in pleasure unbeknownst to her and her and him and him and her and her until now, let me celebrate, what has been, let me just let me, let me taste , let me kiss, let me smell, let me wish, for this night to never to…… let this musky tainted room never leave my mind, let it forever stay picture perfect thanks to the automatic, yes automatic recreation machine... I have simulation..... which means stimulation................. which means imagination for the next time around Athens

No stone-throwing from this sinner. I like it.

Ogden Nash is my boy any day of the week.