Panel #2 Session 4

 

 

We need to talk about how poetry offers restitution of women’s historical voices

   - Anne Carson, Angela Costi & Kimberly Williams

     RMIT University  &  University of Canberra

​

In the 1970’s, second wave feminists such as Adrienne Rich, wrote about the exclusion of women – as well as people of colour, Indigenous people, LGBTIQ+ and other marginalised constituencies – from literary records. Since then, the project of the restitution of historical female voices has largely been conducted via prose writing – biography, fiction, creative non-fiction and more recently, autotheory. These stories are of women overshadowed by prominent male partners, misrepresented, maligned and/or those whose own accomplishments or lives have not been adequately recognised. There are many such women, such as botanic illustrator, Elizabeth Gould, Eileen O’Shaughnessy, Orwell’s unacknowledged literary contributor, and Violette Leduc, who is acknowledged as the ‘most famous unknown writer in Paris’. Such reclamation is proving of interest in both academia as well as mainstream prose publishing with works such as The Birdman’s Wife (2016) and Wifedom (Funder, 2023).

 

In recent years, there has also been an upsurge of interest in the poetic rendering of such stories, finding its form an effective form of advocacy. Poets such as Jessica Wilkinson (2012), Jordie Albiston (2013) and Penelope Layland (2023), demonstrate that restitution of historical female voices can be sites of vibrant poetic experimentation and expression. Collectively many recent works demonstrate the versatility and malleability of the poetic biography form with a range of different subjects and experimental approaches.

 

Three poets will read poems from their respective restitution projects. Additionally, through a dialogic process, they will interview each other about what drives each to use poetry in the restitution of historical female voices.