I shouldn't be surprised one tiny bit, but I just stumbled across a 2-volume book from 1915, an anthology of lyric poetesses from 16th century spain and lat. america. There must be a hundred women poets at least, in there. Romances, lyrics, epics, sonnets...
It hasn't been checked out since 1941.
I leave it to the reader's imagination the number of times I've been in some lat. amer. studies or lit class and heard a prof. say (or been reading some "anthology of things spanish from forever-ago till whenever", in english or spanish) that there weren't any women writing then except for of course Sor Ju4na.
Did you hear the part above - Perhaps it needs repeating - an enormous anthology of women's writing from 16th and 17th century spain and lat. america. It doesn't apply to my current project, but... I could cry. A tear has sprung to my eye more than once this afternoon.
Meanwhile I'm newly in love with m3rcedes M4tamoros!!! I found a huge scholarly edition of her stuff! With footnotes and dates on all the poems, thank you thank you... And the poems rock!!! ...and WITH, crucially, an appendix with a bunch of poems that the women wrote back to her and also a couple of guys. And an intelligent looking intro that I only skimmed but that mentions homosexualidad feminina and the songs of Bilit1s by L0uys. Score!
And a volume of col0mbian poetisas. From 1936. The editing SUCKS and was done by what must have been a blind naked mole rat... i swear. And most of the women were fucking coy about their age and there's no publication dates; most of the bio information is like "she was born in a town, and she had parents. And her brother was a poet and so was her uncle. Then she died in 1910." ooookay. Fine. Be that way. A fair amount of the poems looked promising! I tend to pick out the ones that are like, "ode to Imagination" or that look vaguely feminist, or the ones to other women. Or -- i found one poem to a rose that was unlike any other poem to a rose that I've seen... so personal and serious, really addressing that individual rose. I've seen a jesus fuckload of rose and dawn poems. the insomnia or moon ones come as a giant relief! Anything on "azul" gets xeroxed instantly.
Whew! Now -off to pick up Moomin. I Cant WAIT to start translating this stuff and typing up details and putting it all in my organized indexed binders. Oh dear Moomin you might get the shaft this afternoon as I will park you in front of nearly any TV to buy an hour and a half more... Or... well. that would be so mean. He needs me. Arrrgh.
Ha! And then I waylaid you. Scuttled all your plans. Your son WILL do yoga, I declared.
Posted by: Jo | June 28, 2005 at 04:42 PM