Week 14

Adrienne Rich represents the faction of feminism within poetry and literature. Her poems largely focus on the lives of women; their thoughts, experiences, etc. In Snapshots of a Daughter-In-Law, she highlights many issues within a normal woman's life, from dealing with menstruation pain and shaving legs to relationships with men, romantic and otherwise. She focuses on a side of female life that many females aren't able to read in poetry and literature. However, her other poems do not exactly have the element of femininity, but they seem to have an intenseness and sincerity that male poets might not be able to convey.

Louise Erdrich: Erdich is known for writing Native American literature and poetry. Native American history is interesting because it is a subset of the American Literature oral tradition. In the poem “Dear John Wayne…”, Erdich writes about what John Wayne represents to American culture as opposed to what he represented literally, and how he represented something good in the eyes of most Americans but something bad in the eyes of Native Americans. In Erdich’s poems, there are the themes of exile/alienation as well as nostalgia and memory.

Li-Young Lee: Lee’s poems are greatly influenced by his father and his father’s death. Almost all of his poems have his father appearing in one way or another.

Sherman Alexie: Alexie is another Native American poet. His poems represented the Native American community. A difference in Alexie’s poetry is that he is often comedic.