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  • Essay / Deconstructing phallogocentrism in Rich's poems

    As a continuum that approaches the limit where we can hear his voice independent of male speech, A Wild Patience celebrates a new consciousness as Rich attempts to construct a utopia Amazonian, a no man's land free of a phallocentric linguistic structure, a fantasy of a feminine utopia – Her playground. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned"?Get the original essayRich's poems in A Wild Patience (1981) are a call to action for self-representation and self-creation of women; we must rewrite what has been lost in our history; “the book of myths / in which our names do not appear”. Moving away from its past adherence to a male-oriented poetic process, A Wild Patience is the product of a shift toward a truly feminine aesthetic, calling for a purely female-centered vision and an authentic art form feminine in his poetry. This collection deals so intimately with the language of language, and Rich conveys a keen awareness of the ways in which grammar and punctuation, the rules that govern our use of language, are also patriarchal tools. From Rich's conservative voice in A Change of World to his radical revolutionary voice in Diving into the Wreck and finally, to the development of a playing field of women's writing in A Wild Patience, we can see Rich's individual continuum ; it is a journey, a process, an evolution, which seeks to get closer to the limit where one can hear one's voice, independently of male speech. Above all, Rich elevates poetry among all literary genres as the best space for its collective resistance. against exclusionary binary languages. This notion is extremely valuable because it underpins the way she chooses to manipulate form; she often writes with an absence of grammar and punctuation. Feminist poets argue that the poetic tradition of concentrated reflection and brevity of form provides the most appropriate and malleable means for women to challenge a language that has historically excluded them; “they locked me up in prose”. Therefore, its expansions of form are an outright act of resistance against oppressive binary language; it is when she stretches her tongue that she can be heard. Each active decision to betray the logics of language is another hole dug in this excavation process. Whether it's the lack of points in "Coast to Coast", or the large gaps - the "broken language" - in "Heroines", each action creates more space for its monkey bars, its swing , its slippery dive - its playground. . Let's be patient so that this project prospers; because in this quarry, Rich plants his landscape. When we examine Rich's early writings in A Change of World, we can detect a conservative voice that conforms to the scientific language of logic and formalism. Thus, it is evident that the male literary canon actually shaped the origins of his work; she is at once a daughter of the masculine tradition, of its teachers and its editors – a tradition that asks us all to be rational, marginal and grateful. Rich, among many others, had no choice but to be an obedient girl to her male masters in order to gain the approval of the male judges who held the power to publish and accredit her work. As a result, women writers are forced to internalize the norms of male culture and imitate established modes of construction. With all of this in mind, when we look at Rich's female voice in A Wild Patience, we can truly admire its evolution and.