Serendip is an independent site partnering with faculty at multiple colleges and universities around the world. Happy exploring!

Reply to comment

skumar's picture

My thoughts on a conglomerate mess that is poetry

Reading the poems that have been posted thus far, I find myself completely awestruck at how difficult it is to associate language with a gender. Since we are experimenting, here, let me present you my hypothesis. I hypothesized that court and less descriptive sentences would posit a male poet whereas long and complex, flowy/sinuous, or "invaginated" writing would make for a female poet.

Some questions:

1. What constitutes genderless poetry? I don't mean using gender neutral pronouns...because that present a solution that would be too easy.

2. Is there a way to assign gender to language and writing style without reverting back to gender binary (masculine vs. feminine tone, voice, words etc)?

3. Is it more feminist to know & acknowledge or not know & mysteriously admire the gender of the creator?

Reply

To prevent automated spam submissions leave this field empty.
4 + 14 =
Solve this simple math problem and enter the result. E.g. for 1+3, enter 4.