Feminist poetry

[2] The title of first feminist poet is often given to Sappho, at least in part because she seems to write about female homosexuality in Ancient Greece, a culture and time when lesbian sexuality was usually ignored or erased.

[7] Like the Dutt Sisters, Naidu was allowed access to all the educational resources she desired, and she passed the Madras University matriculation examination at age 12.

[7] Ultimately, Naidu's unconventional upbringing and education were catalysts for her intellectual powers, since as she writes in her roman à clef 'Sulani,' ""Unlike the girls of her own nation, she had been brought up in an atmosphere of large un-convention and culture and absolute freedom of thought and action.

[12]The fact that she chooses to avoid a heteronormative life with marriage and children is often held up as a feminist choice, and she represents the possibility to be a woman who 'pursues knowledge and procreates only through art and not through a genetic legacy.

"[15] While it is difficult to ascertain from these oral traditions whether the authors of early texts were male or female, precolonial native poetry certainly addresses issues relevant to women in a sensitive and positive way, for example the Seminole poem, 'Song for Bringing a Child Into the World.

"[17] In the context of Canada, Anne Marie Dalton argues that at least some indigenous communities in North America (though not all) have lived by practicing ecofeminism with regard to women's roles, and the sustainability of the land.

[19] Feminist literary criticism defined Bradstreet in retrospect as a "protofeminist," because of her "gender awareness," and her treatment of domestic concerns of importance in women's lives.

Engaging with male writers like Ralph Waldo Emerson or William Wordsworth, her work is praised for developing "others ways of representing the position of a female speaking subject" in particular romantic and psychological dynamics.

'[21] In the 1970s, feminist literary criticism articulated Dickinson's feminism through groundbreaking studies by Margaret Homans, Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, and Suzanne Juhasz.

Critics point in particular to Dickinson's expression of anger at women's confinement, to her re-gendering of external and internal realities, to her use of feminist motifs, and to her articulation of her particular position in Puritan, patriarchal culture.

[27] Cristianne Miller goes so far as to say that 'In no period before and rarely since have women poets had greater success and influence than in the first half of the twentieth century in the United States.

[21][28] Dunbar-Nelson, however, is an accomplished writer in her own right, praised by poet Camille Dungy for breaking out of writing only about "black women's things," instead addressing "the theater and war of life.

[29] Alice Duer Miller (1874–1942) wrote poems mocking anti-suffragist advocates, which were published in the New York Tribune, a popular news outlet of the era.

[21][34] By the time of the 1940s, magazines were being set up which, though perhaps not obviously feminist, certainly in their practices were very different to male-run publications: take for example Contemporary Verse (1941–52) published in Canada by a group of women writers, including Dorothy Livesay, P.K.

[38][39] Women like Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) and Anne Sexton (1928–1974) provided a feminist version of the Confessional Poets' poetics, which worked alongside feminist texts of the day, like Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique, to "address taboo subjects and social limitations that plagued American women" (although Plath died before The Feminine Mystique was published)[40][36][41][42] Lucille Clifton (1936–2010) also borrowed from Confessional poetics, a strategy that was key according to Adrienne Rich for avoiding being trapped between "misogynist black male critics and white feminists still struggling to unearth a white woman's tradition.

Adrienne Rich (1929–2012) also became a key feminist poet, praised by Alicia Ostriker for bringing "intellect" to poetry, "something that women were not supposed to have," as well as "a leftward leaning sensibility in which coming out as lesbian was just one part.

"[36] Famously, when Rich received the National Book Award for her collection, Diving into the Wreck, she accepted it on behalf of all the female nominees, including Audre Lorde and Alice Walker:We, Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich, and Alice Walker, together accept this award in the name of all the women whose voices have gone and still go unheard in a patriarchal world, and in the name of those who, like us, have been tolerated as token women in this culture, often at great cost and in great pain.

[48][49][50] Sometimes thought of as a writer who developed a "black lesbian eroticism," Lorde's poetry also shows a deep ethical and moral commitment, which seeks to challenge racism, sexism, and homophobia.

[51] Many of Lorde's poems have a great deal in common with the modern-day campaign #blacklivesmatter, as they pose questions about institutionalised racism in American public services like the price force, for example in her poem 'Power':A policeman who shot down a ten year old in Queens stood over the boy with his cop shoes in childish blood and a voice said "Die you little motherfucker" and there are tapes to prove it.

[2] Poetry readings became spaces for feminists to come together in cities and in rural communities, and talk about sexuality, women's roles, and the possibilities beyond heteronormative life.

[57][56] The Vancouver convention brought together women writers, publishers, and booksellers to discuss the issues of the Canadian literary world, including gender inequity.

[59] US feminist language poets like Lynn Hejinian or Susan Howe, or Canadian writers like Daphne Marlatt looked back to the legacy of experimentalist modernists like Gertrude Stein, or Mina Loy, and also to diverse sources of inspiration like Denise Levertov, Marguerite Duras, Virginia Woolf, Nicole Brossard, Phyllis Webb, Louky Bersianik, and Julia Kristeva.

"[2] Present day feminist poetry in North America holds space for a great variety of poets tackling identity, sexuality, and gender issues.

Key writings in the recent past include Claudia Rankine's careful skewering of race related microaggressions in Citizen,[61] Dorothea Laskey's "ferocious confession" in Rome for example,[62] and Bhanu Kapil's challenge the violent inherent in structures of language and institutions.

[64][65] The verse-novel Aurora Leigh (1856) by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861) is one such feminist work, which challenged a prevailing attitude that women's lives were incompatible with writing poetry.

[68][69][70] At the age of 13, Levy published her first poem in the feminist journal, the Pelican, and she grew to maturity surrounded by writers and social reformers on the London scene of the era, such as Eleanor Marx and Olive Schreiber.

[78] In the inter-war years, British women poets associated with modernism began to find themselves public figures, though their feminist ideas sometimes came into conflict with the literary establishment which remained a kind of "exclusive male club.

[79] This was also a period when American women poets living in Britain made an important contribution to the writing of the day: writers like H.D., Mina Loy, and Amy Lowell all combined radical poetic content with experimentation of form, allowing them to explore feminist polemic and non-heteronormative sexualities in innovative new modes.

[79] Other British feminist poets of the time like Anna Wickham, Charlotte Mew, and Sylvia Townsend Warner, receive less critical attention, but also sought to challenge and reevaluate tropes of femininity.

[80] Feminist publishers, Virago (founded in 1973), Onlywomen (1974), The Women's Press (1978), and Sheba (1980), were established, alongside magazines like Spare Rib.

Toru Dutt
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
Poet Joy Harjo's argument for the centrality and importance of native poetry in North America is significant for feminist literary histories.
Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson
Audre Lorde
Elizabeth Barrett Browning