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Winterson-

Leviticus:

‘What does exist lies in the sphere of your own hands.’

I searched the story of Leviticus in the Old Testament and it’s basically the section about instruction on how to be “Holy” and how one should carry themselves and what to do to “live a holy life.” I think about how the word “Queer” means abnormal/unique and was used to shame members of the LGBTQ communities back in the day for being “different,” “wrong,” and “not normal.”

I think about the story of the prince who was in search for the “perfect woman” and the fact that the prince was the only person who could define perfection. It makes me think about our Eurocentric-heterosexual-patriarchal society and how Western and European countries were the ones to define what is “normal,” “correct,” and wildly “accepted.” This caused males, whiteness, heterosexuality, and Protestant religion to be the most praised identities that give people privileges and recognition. I think that the prince in this story represents our societies that try to define what is “perfect” and how one should live their lives “correctly.”

But the “perfect woman” in the story says ‘What does exist lies in the sphere of your own hands.’ I think that speaks to people who identify as part of the LGBTQ community. I think the woman is saying that “perfection” does not exist– in other words there is not set of rules to determine how people should live their lives. She is recognizing that everyone is different and everyone has flaws, but our flaws are what make us unique. I think she is saying that it’s better to be unique and accept yourself and your truth, than to try to constantly live up to socially constructed ideas of “right” and “wrong.” The woman is saying that if you are constantly trying to seek this perfection, you will die and never have it because it does not exist. Only who you are and your identity is perfect for you, that is your perfection. This connects to Audrey Lorde’s saying that “your silence will never protect you.” All these things are talking about accepting and loving who you truly are and to stand up for yourself and not let people out you down because you are not what society defines as “perfect.”

http://www.jeanettewinterson.com/about/

2. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/oct/20/jeanettewinterson

3. https://literature.britishcouncil.org/writer/jeanette-winterson

4. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/adrienne-rich

5. https://newrepublic.com/article/132117/adrienne-richs-feminist-awakening

6. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/audre-lorde

 

 

 

 

 

 

It seems to me that two questions at the beginning of the stanza express the doubt and prejudice of Rich against herself and her work. The fact that she uses her personal experience as writing material, as many writers have done, suddenly becomes the source of inquiry. She asks herself if writing about her love life is a normal thing to do, or such action is so uncommon that only an alien creature would do.
“What kind of beast would turn its life into words?
What atonement is this all about?”

At first, she is confused about the purpose of her writings – whether she writes to compensate for something that she did wrong or not. But then, she realizes that in the process of writing, she is actually being true to her feeling; she writes not only to meet her own need but also to reflect the truth and to evoke real moments of life on the page.
“—and yet, writing words like this, I am also living.”

Rich also brings into question the impacts of her writings on others. She thinks of the waves of sound from wolverines’ howl that are so strong that they change the flow of the wind. This line is the metaphor for her hope that her pieces can alter the situation that lesbian poets have to face, and that her words are influential enough to touch the souls of readers. However, she admits that rather than focusing on topics that she really cares about, she instead distracts herself by writing about topics of less significance to her. She also wonders if she takes advantage of her lover the same way that she uses trees and wars as writing subjects to hide her true writing passion.
“am I simply using you, like a river or a war?

So what is the problem that makes Rich constantly question whether she is being close to the truth or not? What change does she hope would occur? Maybe, as she said, the freedom of expression is what she is looking for. Individuals, regardless of their social background, should have a chance to be heard, respected and should have equal right to spread their words. I have a feeling that the “desecration” is the metaphor for the brutal of mistreatment. The dream of having a universal language between poets are worth fighting for, because female poets minority group are discriminated for their race, their sexual orientation, their socio-economic class, and so on. The same message shows up in Gloria’s advice to writing: “ Feel your way without blinders. To touch more people, the personal realities and the social must be evoked – not through rhetoric but through blood and pus and sweat.”

“Every peak is a crater. This is the law of volcanoes, making them eternally and visibly female. No height without depth, without a burning core” (Rich, 148).

When reading this particular excerpt of section XI of Twenty-One Love Poems I immediately notice the gender attachment that Adrienne Rich gives to the volcano.  The law of volcanoes is when power is forcefully held in, and then bursts. A volcano is extremely powerful and by identifying the “law of volcanoes” as a woman, it creates the parallelism of the harnessing and withholding of power, and the eruption of power as similar to the power of woman.  It also relates to the suffering of woman, which is a common theme throughout Twenty-One Love Poems. Rich commonly discusses woman finding their power through many different aspects, such as love or language, and that woman are forced by society to withhold their power.  However, once one is able to harness the power which they hold in their “burning core”, they allow it to erupt and therefore become more powerful.  Another place we see this idea is in Audre Lorde’s piece, The Uses of the Erotic. In Lorde’s writing she discusses the idea of redefining the word erotic to mean power or using erotic as a resource for power.  Once one is able to understand where that comes from, they can use it to their ability and become more powerful and self aware.   For Rich it is the comparison between the volcano and a woman that exemplifies this, and for Lorde it is when she writes “the erotic is a resource within each of us that lies in a deeply female and spiritual plane, firmly rooted in the power of our unexpressed or unrecognized feeling,” (Lorde 87).  In both pieces, the usage of power is thought of as an entirely female force which is kept inside, until it is recognized, and once one can fully understand it, then it is an extremely powerful force.

“your small hands precisely equal to my own- only the thumb is larger, longer- in these hands/ I could trust the world, or in many hands like these/…” 

When I read this, I immediately assumed she was speaking to a another woman, possibly a lover, but initially a specific person rather than addressing women in general. She then transitions into referencing women as a whole when she says “… or in many hands like these…”.  Rich then goes on to talk about “…hands like these,/ handling power-tools, or steering-wheel…” physical labor oriented tasks that would be typically attributed to men;  but Rich asserts that she ‘could trust’ these jobs in the hands of women.  I feel here that she is not only saying that women can do the same jobs as men, but on a grander scale, that women are equal to men, and are equally capable to “…pilot the exporters rescue-ship/ through icebergs, or piece together/ the fine, needle-like herds of a great krater-cup/…” 

Towards the end of the stanza, Rich references “… figures of ecstatic women striding/ to the sibyl’s den or the Eleusinian cave-“ Both of these are allusions to important and powerful females in ancient Greece and Greek mythology.  A Sibyl was a woman through which deities would communicate oracles and prophecies.  An Eleusinian Cave was a secret ceremonial site in ancient Greece, at which rituals were performed in honor of the Goddess Demeter, and her daughter Persephone.  I believe Rich added this reference because Demeter is the goddess of fertility.  

“The problem, unstated till now, is ho/to live in a damaged body/in a world where pain is meant to be gagged/uncured un-grieved-over” (208).

 

We are damaged, however, we do exist. Rich is at odds. The “damaged body” is the women’s body that has been trampled and silenced by male hegemony and that pain has been “unstated.” Over time, as Rich wrote this poem over the course of two years (1983-1985), the woman’s voice is being heard – “till now”- voicing and acknowledging that the woman’s body is “damaged” and that the degradation done to the woman’s body happens in a world that reinforces that degradation. Therefore this question that Rich poses is inevitable because it has taken an immense amount of time – “until now” she says – to voice the pain that has festered within the bodies of women for so long. The bodies are already damaged, yet existing. I am making the claim that the reality of this existence will always maintain a stasis of pain, however, when Rich says, “meant to be” she implies that our world has the ability to change. That a women’s body does not have to be “gagged / uncured ungrieved-over” but that Rich uses these words to suggest that the “un” can be expunged. Although the history of a woman’s body has been and will be damaged, we can conceivably alter our world to where those bodies can grieve, and can heal and be cured. I want to bring in conversation of Audre Lordes’ excerpt from “Growing up Gay/Growing up Lesbian.” Lorde discuses growing up in NYC while being a black lesbian, and she says, “What I didn’t realize was how much harder I had to try merely to stay alive, or rather, stay human.” Lorde is the epitome of what Rich is adhering to, as her identity has been so neglected, harassed, and abused, that she is now trying to “stay alive” through keeping her body alive, and existing.

“I don’t want to hear how he beat her after the earthquake,

tore up her writing, threw the kerosene

lantern into her face waiting

like an unbearable mirror of his own” (Rich 234).

Just in the first four lines of this poem, Rich says quite a lot regarding gender roles and her view of domestic violence. She begins with “I don’t want to hear”, then continues to tell the story of a rather gruesome scene in the third person (234). Given the tone of the piece and the background of Rich, I am led to believe that Rich is trying to convince the reader of the severity of domestic violence and how repetitive it truly is. Saying she does not want to hear about it is not exactly true, she just knows the story already because of how repetitive this behavior is. Additionally, Rich repeats this phrase “I don’t want to” throughout the entirety of the poem, drawing a parallel between her language and the repetition of the behaviors she doesn’t want to know about, or rather, already knows about (234).

The idea of such abuse following an earthquake paints a more realistic picture of an abuser. She chose a character who is triggered by what she calls an earthquake then takes his anger out in the form of violence. She uses this metaphorical earthquake to establish a trigger for these abusive episodes, which are typically followed by apologies and presents to make the victim stay.

Tearing up the victim’s writing is something that cuts much deeper than flesh. Rich makes this connection to show how domestic abuse robs one of their individual sense of self, such as the connection a writer has to their writings.

The “unbearable mirror of his own” leads me to believe that Rich wants the reader to realize that abusers typically have reasons for doing so, and abuse is systematic, be it taught through generations or what have you (234). In essence, I suppose what I feel these lines, as well as the poem in its entirety, is trying to do, is bring some light to specific systematic issues women face, including domestic violence, but I also feel that many of the metaphors made can be linked to other forms of oppression or oppression-linked violence, making this poem a link, in a sense, to bring women together to safely recollect their experiences.

“No one’s fated or doomed to love anyone.

The accidents happen, we’re not heroines,

they happen in our lives like car crashes,”

-Poem 17 of ’21 Love Poems’

More than anything else throughout this excerpt, the phrase “fated or doomed”, stood out to me the most.  Fate and doom are both incredibly cosmic in nature,  but have different connotations that leave them on opposite ends of the spectrum that is the overall concept of destiny.  When you think of fate in the context of love, it’s uncontrollable.  And when you think of doomed love, it’s unavoidable.  My interpretation of this poem is that the narrator is saying love is something we can’t control or avoid when it really comes down to it.  It’s almost as if this is a neutral stance on the power of love, since the narrator is so adamant about how love is really just an accident.  I feel as if this might tie a bit into Rich’s personal life and sexuality.  She spent a majority of her life in the closet, but eventually did come to terms with the fact that regardless of her straight marriage, she was just naturally attracted to women.  That realization was not characterized by “fate” or “doom” for her, but rather an admittance that love is an unpredictable phenomenon, just like car crashes.

What caught my attention in this poem was the focussing effect present right from the beginning. The poem starts as the depiction of a painting, of a picture. The isotopia of painting and art in general helps building this effect: the word “scene” is repeated two times in the first section, and associated with words such as “sequence”, “blurs”, “Chinese painter”, “ink-stick”, “planned”, “exposed”, “foreground”. From the “hill-scene on an enormous continent”, the poet-narrator’s eyes, and through hers, the reader’s eyes, move slowly towards the “two human figures recklessly exposed, / leaning together in a sticklike boat / in the foreground.” So the painting, and thus the poem, bring before the reader’s eyes the immensity of a continent, of an infinite landscape, and guide him/her towards the minute details of two human figures. The metaphor of the painting extends through the whole poem and is, in my opinion, essential to its meaning and aim.

The initial description is however already tainted by disturbing, or at least unusual associations. The first word that follows the panoramic (and so, very general, the least intimate) view of the hill/continent is “intimacy”, even before the apparition of the human figures. This same word is associated with “terrors”. In the same manner, “desolation” is followed by “comforted”. And even then, when we are expecting an image of comfort and human warmth, all that we can find is the word “recklessly”. The two human figures are not brought together by intimate warmth, they are “recklessly exposed”. This series of antitheses, or at least antithetic ideas, set the background for an awkward and unreassuring reading of the poem. The picture that the poem is going to paint before our eyes is not going to be one of happiness and beauty.

It is also important to underline the cultural diversity of the artistic references. Besides the references to traditional Chinese painting mentioned above (and repeated in section 3), Rich refers to Käthe Kollwitz’s social-themed art in the last section. She also mentions “huts strung across a drought-stretched land” (section 1), which it would be too hasty and stereotypical to interpret as allusions to the African continent if the names of countries such as Chad, Niger, and Upper Volta (Burkina Faso) weren’t mentioned a little further. The word “world” is also repeated several times in the poem. These references help give the poem a global aim and dimension. From the metaphor of painting, we can now shift towards one of photography, which will better serve our purpose. Indeed, the above-mentioned focussing effect can be compared to that of a camera’s. This idea is supported by the presence of words such as “fogged” and “film” in the first section. The whole poem then acquires a reporting and documentary dimension. It becomes a vivid testimony of the state the world is in. And of course testimony can mean exposure, and denunciation. The last picture trampled upon at the end of the poem is that of “a woman shield[ing] a dead child from the camera”. Thanks to the chiasmic construction of these last lines:

                   In the black mirror of the subway window

                   hangs my own face, hollow with anger and desire.

                   Swathed in exhaustion, on the trampled newsprint,

                   a woman shields a dead child from the camera,

her image gets mixed up with the narrator’s. It could get mixed up with that of any woman’s.

” I know you are reading this poem which is not in your language

guessing at some words while others keep you reading

and I want to know which words they are.

I know you are reading this poem listening for something, torn

between bitterness and hope

turning back once again to the task you cannot refuse.

I know you are reading this poem because there is nothing

else left to read…”

 

This passage allows the writer to get into the reader’s head. It gets the reader to start thinking. Why am I reading this poem? What does this mean to me? I think Rich provides us with this poem so that the reader can really question themselves and their identity. It allows the reader to get out of their comfort zone  and open their eyes to what is going on in their mind. By using phrases like “I know you are…” Rich gets very personal with the reader. Rich does this to create a relationship with the reader to get them to think about themselves. In doing so, the reader takes a moment to stop and reflect. He/she is no longer numb to their daily routines, he/she is now awake and alert.

This passage relates to the whole of the novel because of its intriguing theme of the self. The poems challenge the reader by making the reader pause and reflect on themselves and what is going on around them. Like all of the poems in the novel, Rich gets into the reader’s mind. She forms a relationship with the reader that allows them to view the stories from a personal level. It is the writing of Rich that makes the reader feel as if they are almost there, witnessing the whole thing.