The Poetics of Carol Muske and Joy Harjo :: Biography Biographies Essays

The Poetics of hum Muske and gaiety Harjo I began a study of autobiography and memoir writing several(prenominal) years ago. Recently I discovered two poets who believe that arrangement ones place in history is integral to their art. Carol Muske and Joy Harjo are renowned poets who explore the intricacies of self in regards to ethnic and historical place. Muske specifically addresses the poetics of women poets, while Harjo addresses the poetics of minority, specifically Native American, writers. Both poets try the autobiographical nature of poetry. Muske and Harjo regard the self as integral to their art. In this representation of self, Muske and Harjo discuss the importance of truth-telling good word and history in their poetics. Muske says, testimony exists to confront a world beyond the self and the drama of the self, withal the world of silenceor the unanswerable (Muske 16). Muske asks, The question of self, for a woman poetis continually vexingwhat is a womans self? (Mu ske 3). Women have historically had their self urinated for them by the patriarchal family in which they live, which leaves contemporaneous women wondering how to define a womans self at all. Even if they, as women, can create a self, how accurate is it? Muske muses on what is a truth telling self since a womans perception of truth is colored always by what the patriarchal society is telling her is truth. Muske says in her poem A Private Matter, in that location are the words, dialogue of people you once became or not. It is in these words that a woman finds herself, a poem of all the selves in a self, but not without a cost. In Epith, Muske muses You forget yourselfwith each(prenominal) glittering pin,each chip off the old rock,each drink of the long toast to your famous independence,negotiated at such costand tacit refusing to fit. The inclination to bear witness seems aligned with the missing self (Muske 4). Women create the missing self by telling their stories, not the s tories that have been told to them by a male dominated society, but those stories that define that missing self. In so doing, Muske reiterates the statement James Olney makes when he says, ... even as the autobiographer fixes limits in the past, a new experiment in living, a new interpret in consciousness ... and a new projection or parable of a new self is under way (Olney).