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Quite the rich question-asking session today, for which thanks (to Becky, for the idea, and to all, for interested participation). Most striking to me--as the finale for a feminist studies course--was the challenge to the question: the assertion that "looking for gendered language" was NOT a useful exercise.

For the archive, here's what was written on the board, in response to Sonal's hypothesis regarding the contrast between the short, direct "male" and the complex, "invaginated" "female" language of poetry:

• interpretation of gender is based on the historical contect of poem and authorship--what would be ambiguous authorship now wasn't during the "second wave"
• gender arises in form and content
  --Is this true of people as well?
• Poets can create speakers of any gender. If they're convincing enough, we can't tell their genders from their speakers!
• "Phenomenal Woman"
  --direct, flowing, long, not really invaginated
  --more male
• What abouty "inner mystery"? That part seems envaginated....
• "Men": short direct sentences, but still folds of meaning.
• "Stepping Westward":
  --assertive--"ebb and flow"
  --striding-- "steady in the black sky"
  --ripening" on her own terms
• We feel that our poems definitely take on a more masculine style--short sentences, to the point--but we don't know whether that's also because their main audience is children.
• One poem can mix sentence lengths, challenging the hypothesis. The two poems seemed either descriptive or not, and also fit the hypothesis.
• What kinds/levels of invagination are there?
• Ideas can be "invaginated" without the language being very complex.
• Direct, non-invaginated writing can feel very feminine.
• Is a poem genderless if neutral? Or two extremes?
• Is the gender of the poem dictated by the gender of the poet?
• Q: what influence might identity (including race & ethnicity) have on poems?
• We realized that the content of poems is more telling than form/length.
• Can't group writing into two categories. Also, we thought poems were written by women that written by men. Maybe we women we are more likely to assume authors are.