Woman Poets To Read Every Month of the Year
I concluded this essay and selection of quintessential woman poets on the first day of March, the first day of the month that has been declared ‘Women's History Month’. And while I am thrilled as a writer to welcome readers into this month and this celebration of women, I would like to extend a challenge to all readers to pick up writings by women every month of the year. Women’s voices need to be heard; women’s narratives need to be heard. Female writers deserve celebration throughout the entirety of each year.
Sylvia Plath
‘Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.’
The notorious poet Sylvia Plath was known for her devastating work surrounding mental health and depression. She has been recognized with expanding the genre of ‘confessional poetry’. Her poetry collection ‘Ariel’ has been credited as her rise into recognition, the collection contains poetry such as ‘Daddy’ and ‘Lady Lazarus’ which both are deeply personal poems that detail deep depression and suicidal thoughts. Her only full-length novel entitled ‘The Bell Jar’ parallels Plath’s own struggle with clinical depression. Plath died of suicide a month after the publication of ‘The Bell Jar’.
Recommended Reading:
o Ariel
o The Bell Jar
o The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
Emily Dickinson
‘A word is dead
When it is said,
Some say.
I say it just
Begins to live
That day.’
Born in Amherst, Massachusetts, Emily Dickinson was not actually very well known during her life. Isolated by the inhabitants of the town she grew up in, she was considered to be an ‘eccentric’ as she often wore white clothing and hardly left her home. However, Dickinson grew to become an abundant writer and wrote nearly one thousand, eight hundred poems, only ten of which were published in her lifetime. While her poetry collections exist, they were only published posthumously. Dickinson’s poetry was mostly untitled and often dealt with the topics of mortality and spirituality. She was noted to have had a lifelong fascination with death and life and worked to challenge the abstract within her poetry.
Recommended Reading:
o After great pain, a formal feeling comes -
o Because I could not stop for death –
o I felt a funeral, in my brain,
Maya Angelou
‘The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.’
Often credited more as a memoirist, Maya Angelou was a prolific poet and has been endorsed as
the ‘black woman’s poet laureate’. Angelou first began writing poetry and literature at a young
age as a way to heal from trauma. She often stated that being introduced to writers such as William Shakespeare, Edgar Allen Poe and Frances Harper gave her voice after trauma had silenced her far too young. What began as a way of healing blossomed into an abundant career. Her poetryoften covered the themes of racial discrimination, love, loss and struggle. Maya Angelou recited her poem ‘On The Pulse of Morning’ at the inauguration of President Bill Clinton.
Recommended Reading:
o I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings
o And Still I Rise
o Phenomenal Woman
Louise Glück
‘Doesn't everyone want to feel in the night
the beloved body, compass, polestar,
to hear the quiet breathing that says
I am alive, that means also
you are alive, because you hear me,
you are here with me. And when one turns,
the other turns—’
The judges who awarded Louise Glück with the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature praised her ‘unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal’. Often acclaimed as an autobiographical poet, Glück’s poetry draws often from mythology and nature in order to reflect upon her personal life. She is the author of twelve poetry collections and is currently a professor of writing at Yale University.
Recommended Reading:
o Faithful and Virtuous Night
o The Triumph of Achilles
o The Wild Iris
Amanda Gorman
‘Every breath from my bronze-pounded chest,
we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one
We will rise from the gold-limbed hills of the west,
we will rise from the windswept northeast
where our forefathers first realized revolution
We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the midwestern states,
we will rise from the sunbaked south
We will rebuild, reconcile and recover
and every known nook of our nation and
every corner called our country,
our people diverse and beautiful will emerge,
battered and beautiful’
At the young age of twenty-two, Amanda Gorman has been named the first National Youth Poet Laureate and stands as the youngest poet ever to read at a presidential inauguration. She recited her poem ‘The Hill We Climb’ at the inauguration of President Joe Biden and gained instant acclaim across the nation. The book version of her inaugural poem will be released later this year with a foreword by Oprah Winfrey.
Recommended Reading:
o The Hill We Climb
o In This Place (An American Lyric)
Patti Smith
‘How long ago was man promised?
never again. no not again
no death by water
yet how many questions arise like yeast.
like the perfect dead:’
Punk writer and musician Patti Smith has also been acclaimed primarily as a poet. The lyrics to her vast library of songs have been collected into many anthologies of her work, documenting her incredible rise into the world of both literature and rock and roll. Her memoir ‘Just Kids’ tells the story of her life as a bohemian on the streets of 1970s New York City among characters such as Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs. Smith often interludes her music with speaking poetry and even recorded an entire album reading from her poetry collection ‘The Coral Sea’ - a tribute to her friend Robert Mapplethorpe.
Recommended Reading:
o Just Kids
o The Coral Sea
o Auguries of Innocence
Audre Lorde
‘I have been woman
for a long time
beware my smile
I am treacherous with old magic
and the noon's new fury
with all your wide futures
promised
I am
woman
and not white.’
Audre Lorde described herself as ‘black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet. As a poet, Lorde is known for the emotional expression through her poetry that voiced her outrage with civil and social injustices. Her powerful poems explore themes such as feminism, civil rights and identity. Lorde dedicated her life to speaking out against the injustices of racism, sexism and homophobia and her poetry remains incredibly relevant as we continue to work through and face these injustices that Lorde wrote of. Lorde has been credited as a quintessential African American poet and feminist theorist, her essay ‘Uses of the Erotic’ delves into the world of the erotic and challenges the erotic to be portrayed as a tool of empowerment for women.
Recommended Reading
o The Black Unicorn
o A Burst of Light
o Sister Outside: Essays and Speeches
