3. Open Letter 13th Series, Number 9, Summer 2009. “Beyond Stasis: Poetics & Feminism Today”
I see this as a companion piece to Prismatic Publics; guest edited by the same Kate Eichhorn, and Barbara Godard, out of a failed conference on feminist poetics. This issue hearkens back to another issue of Open Letter, “Redrawing the Lines: the Next Generation” which was edited by Lola Lemire Tostevin in 1992, attempting to plot the trajectory of feminist poetics in this country (that’d be Canada, son) since. The pieces therein explore issues of Generations and Generativity in position papers/poetics statements written by several feminist poets (for me the best part of “Beyond Stasis”), interviews, histories (essays by Sina Queyras and Elena Basile received the most underlining and starring from me), and analysis papers, which attempt to redress the lack of critical attention that has been paid to the younger generations of women writers since “Redrawing the Lines.”
The take-home message is that if you are a woman feminist poet in Canada who doesn’t want to see your own generation left out of the annals, you’d best get writing some criticism.
