Revolutionary Women's Poetry
Taught by Michael Tencer
Michael Tencer is a roving poet, critic, and activist. Some of his piquant writings and radio shows on politics and aesthetics can be found at http://ammarxists.org/?s=michael+tencer
Throughout history, collective resistance to women's oppression has found inspiration and expression through poetry. In the struggle for rights and freedoms, women poets have played direct roles in social and political protest, and their poems have expressed dreams of liberation against the harsh realities faced by women, ethnic minorities, and colonised populations. To many feminists throughout history, the struggle for women's rights has been inexorably linked to the global struggle against all forms of oppression and tyranny, and the revolutionary women poets discussed in this class are not only exemplary feminist thinkers but freedom fighters on all fronts.
In this class we'll consider eight short poems from women writing in different times and places -- from Chinese struggles against imperialism in the early 1900s to the Egyptian resistance to dictatorship in the recent Arab Spring revolution -- discussing the specific approach each poem takes in its political context, and how the models of poetic engagement presented might work in political struggles today.
Before the class we will email the selection of poems to be discussed -- including work by Jayne Cortez, Qiu Jin, Marwa Sharafeldin, Voltairine de Cleyre, Nancy Morejón, and Carol Mirakove. No specialised knowledge of poetry or politics is necessary -- all are welcome!
