week4. mistral and [my love for] madwomen
I have to say I am so glad there is poetry on the booklist for this course. I think it would have felt empty to me without the inclusion of poetry.
This book, given its title and its content surrounding the theme, made me realize how much I love crazy women, especially those who write. Many of my favourite authors and icons are those who would be considered under, or rather subvert, the trope of crazy cat lady, unmarried (by choice?), lives in solitude/seclusion, outspoken, odd, aloof, eccentric, etc. I think there’s something so very liberating about simultaneously subverting and embracing the trope of ‘madwoman’. It lets go of this prim and proper persona that is assumed amongst many women.
Needless to say, I really enjoyed reading Madwomen. There was something very nomadic, intimate, and freeing to Mistral’s writing. While there was an intense feeling of burden, weight, and responsibility – especially in regards to womanhood and motherhood – it was done in a sense that felt more like untangling tension, rather than a coiling. To liberate one from their burdening weight is to add your own grip to the tightening coil as well.
Mistral’s poetry, the visuals and imagery in particular, felt very reminiscent of Emily Dickinson, especially with the constant yet subtle background dance between religion (the Bible) and romance. With Mistral, however, I felt there was a kind of translucent, transcendental thread that strung her poems together in an odd, disconcerted way. The use of ‘states’ in which Mistral invokes were one way where it felt connected. Sometimes she was in a state of witness, of being, of embodying a character (Cassandra, Antigone, Martha and Mary…), in a spiritual state, or in a dream state. All these ‘states’ that Mistral embodied carried a larger feeling, an intention weaved by this mystical, dreamlike thread. After reading some poems back-and-forth, jumping from one to another, they oddly started to mesh together in my head. One character, like ‘Cassandra’, would enter into the visuals of ‘The Woman Unburdened’ – fusing the two different poems into one feeling in my head. Interestingly enough, the dreamlike merging and doubling is mentioned elsewhere. In the introduction of the book, Mistral is said to have lived on “two different planes, dangerously” (21).
I found the introduction of the book to be very intriguing, as it elevated my interpretation of the poems. One excerpt in particular by Mistral (in a letter) caught my attention:
“I write poetry because I can’t disobey the impulse; it would be like blocking a spring that surges up in my throat.
For a long time I’ve been the servant of the song that comes, that appears and can’t be buried away.
How to seal myself up now?…
It no longer matters to me who receives what I submit.What I carry out is, in that respect, greater and deeper than I, I am merely the channel.”
(17)
My question then is how did you feel about Mistral writing from existing character’s perspectives? Like those of Cassandra, Electra, Martha and Mary, and Clytemnestra?
4 replies on “week4. mistral and [my love for] madwomen”
“To liberate one from their burdening weight is to add your own grip to the tightening coil as well.” This phrase of yours has resonated with me (you have great power in the use of words, by the way). You have expressed a sensation that I had when I was reading the collection of poems, but that I was not able to define: that of the weight that Mistral seems to be carrying while he writes. But there are moments when she dances, and even the rhythm of the poem changes. Thank you for your very careful reading.
*while she writes
Hi Jasmine, I loved reading this poetry collection too! I enjoyed reading your blog post because I think you articulate the reasons why you like it much better than I did. I definitely agree with your description of “nomadic, intimate, and freeing”. I thought Mistral’s take on writing from the perspectives of existing characters was very interesting; I’m not familiar enough with any of the characters to say whether or not the poems were accurate, but I think sometimes it can be easier to express certain thoughts and feelings through another character as a conduit.
Hi Jasmine, I couldn’t relate more to your love of “mad” women. I thought Mistral did an incredible job in the way of embracing this identity and also prompting the reader to ask why it exists in the first place. I love your description of her work as “nomadic,” I definitely got the same sense – something wild and free and raging like a storm, like dancing barefoot in the street while it pours.