Masaryk University

Faculty of Arts

Department of English and American Studies

Jana Dreerov

Canary Petunias in Bloom: Black Feminism in Poetry of Alice Walker

and Rita Dove

Magistersk diplomov prce

Supervisor: Mgr. Kateina Prajznerov, PhD.

Brno 2006

Authors Statement:
I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently using only the primary
and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.

Jana Dreerov

Acknowledgements:
I would like to thank Mgr. Kateina Prajznerov, PhD. for her kind help, useful
advice and revision of my dissertation.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I.

Introduction......4
I.1. African American Womens Literary Movement and the Revival of
Poetry....6
I.2. Purple to Lavender: Black Feminism and Womanism..11
I.3. Alice Walker and Rita Dove..15

II. Her Brown Embrace Eternal: Being Black and Woman....24

II.1. Women with the Blessed Dark Skin: Self-definition of African American
Women..25
II.1.a. Prisoners of the Other.................................................................25
II.1.b. Importance and Nonimportance of Race...29
II.1.c. To Be a Woman.....36
II.2. Council between Equals: The Theme of Marriage...39
II.3. Even As I Hold You, I Am Letting Go: The Theme of Motherhood...50
III. One of Many, Each of Us: Black Womens Oppression...58
III.1. Mulification: The Social Dimension of Black Womens Oppression58
III.2. On the Same Bus: The Political Dimension of Black Womens
Oppression.................................................................................................66
III.3. Brown Venus: The Ideological Dimension of Black Womens
Oppression.78
IV. Complicated Balance: Conclusion..88

Works Cited and Used...96

I.

Introduction

In my thesis I examine a phenomenon of the post-Civil Rights Movement

Black feminism. To explore the core themes of Black feminist thoughtracism,
sexism and classismI use the poetry of two contemporary African American
writersAlice Walker and Rita Dove. Since the dates of the first and latest publishing
of their books of poetry differ by four and two decades, respectively, I have the
opportunity to trace the changing themes, symbols, and voice employed in their works.
By comparing and contrasting them I illustrate the alternations in Black feminism and
the trend towards the de-essentialization of race in favor of materialist criticism. The
allied emphasis on individuality and the shift from subjective to objective voice reflect
the changes in contemporary American society.
Why poetry? Since the 1970s poetry has been said to be on the decline.
Recently, however, there appeared several articles envisioning the rebirth of this genre
in literary journals.1 A new wave of African-American women poets emerged in the
1990s and Charles Rowell, the editor of Callaloo, asserts that this wave of poets
might be the largest literary group of working black writers that the United States has
ever known (Editors Note vii). Interestingly, the novel as a genre prevailed during
the whole second half of the twentieth century but in the new century it begins to lose
its power in favor of poetry (Harris 232). Therefore, there should be more attention
directed to the new emerging poets.
Why Black feminism? Both being African American, poetry by Alice Walker
and Rita Dove reflects their position in the society. Among other themes, the search for

See Callaloo 19.2 Emerging Women Writers: A Special Issue (1996), Callaloo 24.3 The Best
of Callaloo Poetry (2001), or Callaloo 27.4 Contemporary African-American Poetry: A New Wave
(2004).

ones identity is central in the literature by minority writers. I see personal identity
defined by ones culture, family, race, gender or social status as an essential part of
ones individuality and source of personal strength. And Black feminism, by
addressing various issues concerning African American women, is one of the means to
delineate black womens identity.
Why Alice Walker and Rita Dove? Alice Walkers works represent the
legacy of the activist literary groups which emerged in the 1960s. Walker is also
active in environmental, feminist, civil rights, and animal rights causes. Despite the
time range of her writing, the themes addressed in her poetry and her poetic voice
have not altered significantly since her first publishing of the book of poetry in
1968. Since Alice Walker is viewed as an icon of the African American literary
world I find it interesting to compare and contrast her poetry with the work by a
half-generation younger poetRita Dove.2 Even though the dates of the first
publishing of their works differ by twelve years, Doves poetry is remarkably
different from her predecessors which was loose and improvisational in style, with
urgent and inspired lyrics (Andrews 114). Therefore, I approach Doves poetry as
a representative of the changing Black feminist thought.
Since the theme of my thesis is not very common in our environment, there
occurred some difficulties in obtaining primary and secondary sources relevant to my
topic. Fortunately, several books by Alice Walker were donated to Palacky University
Olomouc by Walkers friend and kind philantropist Charles Merrill3. As for secondary
sources, there are several critical companions on African American women poetry
2

I learned about Rita Dove only by chance and when I listed through her collection Selected
Poems I found out that it was donated to Palacky University in Olomouc by Alice Walker herself. This
made me more curious about their bond and led to my further investigation which ended in the topic of
my MA thesis.
3
Walker dedicates Revolutionary Petunias and Other Poems besides others also to Charles
Merill the artist, who paints skies (154). For his outstanding long-term contribution to the Czech
educational sphere, Merill was awarded a first-honor silver medal from the Czech Ministry of Education
in 1995.

mostly edited by a prominent African American literary critic Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Further, there are articles on Alice Walker in the e-journals which, however, focus
primarily on her fiction. Being an editor of a literary periodical Callaloo, Rita Dove
has published several poems and critical works there. One of the useful sources for my
thesis are interviews with Walker and Dove. These interviews were taken at different
times of their lives, so they give me an opportunity to trace how their attitudes to
various issues have changed in time. The framing texts on Black feminism are
represented mainly by the works of bell hooks, Patricia Hill Collins and Barbara
Christian.
The aim of my thesis is to explore the issues concerning Black feminist thought
and their shift since the 1960s by analyzing Walkers and Doves poetry. The thesis
contains both the theoretical and analytical parts. The theory previews each analytical
part, which is divided into two main chapters on the personal/public basis. The first,
personal one, examines the self-definition of African American women with an
emphasis on race, gender, and the domestic sphere of their oppression. The second
analytical chapter is devoted to the issues of the public sphere of black womens
oppressionto the social, political and ideological dimensions.

I.1. African American Womens Literary Movement and the Revival of Poetry
The explosion of black womens writing after the Civil Rights Movement is
characterized as the African American womens literary movement. Since 1970 the
sheer level of production of novels and books of poetry by African American women
writers has been enormous; Henry L. Gates suggests that this condition attests to the
vitality and consistency both of this new readership and of the movement itself
(Introduction 3). Moreover, Gates praises these authors that despite their public and

bitter rows about the political implications of black women writing about black male
sexism, this movement has not promoted itself as bombastically or as self-consciously
as, say, did the Harlem Renaissance or the Black Arts Movement (Introduction 3).
This movement is considered to be an extension of the Black Arts Movement, as well
as its repudiation (Gates, Introduction 4). Some of the female authors started
publishing their works before or during the 1960s and, therefore, represent the legacy
of the movement. On the other hand, some try to escape the Movements dictum that
black poets should write solely for and about black people (Rowell, Bold Gesture
vii). Among the former writers who bridge the legacy of the activist writing with the
present notion of African American literature belongs Alice Walker. The latter
approach to literature can be traced in the poetry by Rita Dove.
The first black authors to be accepted by the academic scholars were
predominantly male. Washington claims that without exception Afro-American
women writers have been dismissed by Afro-American literary critics until they were
rediscovered and reevaluated by feminist critics (34). To establish themselves as
adequate literary movement, African American women writers pointed out that their
writings have already been part of the American literary tradition. The 1970s in the
American literature can be described as the period of re-discovering the black
womens literary tradition. Gates excitingly observes that We are only just
recovering, piece by piece, the parts of black womens literary past (Introduction 6).
The black women writers claim the descent from their literary foremothers, such as,
Phillis Wheatley, Frances Harper, Pauline Hopkins, Zora Neale Hurston, Nella Larsen,
Ann Petry, Dorothy West, and Gwendolyn Brooks (Washington 35). Alice Walker also
participated in the trend by bringing to light the forgotten novel by Zora Neale Hurston

Their Eyes Were Watching God and by searching Hurstons roots (Walker, In Search
93).
The year 1970 seems to be crucial in African American literature not only in
terms of quantity of the books published since then but also in terms of quality. In
general, the works by the minority authors started to be acclaimed and appreciated by a
broad audience. Gates argues that the growing institutionalization of Afro-American
literature in traditional English departments has been concomitant with the growth of
black womens literature (Introduction 4). They were published in the mainstream
houses and became the best-sellers. Important figure in the promotion of the Black
literature and black authors was Toni Morrison as an editor for Random House in the
1960s and 1970s (Gates, Introduction 3). African American women writers have
become part of the literary elite penetrating into politics.4 To sustain their writing,
African American women writers received different kinds of scholarships. Even
though the black women writers have been largely acclaimed since the 1970s, except
for Gwendolyn Brooks who got the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1950, it was only in the
1980s when they received the academic prizes.5
But was poetry also acclaimed and sustained as African American fiction at the
time? Arnold Rampersad asserts that during 1960s and 70s African American poets
were influential as they stood close to the center of the Civil Right Movement (52).
However, he argues that until 1985 when his article was published, the AfricanAmerican poetry had been in a state of inactivity (52). Further, he accentuates that it
is hard to come up with the name of a black poet of any consequence today who did
4

In 1993 Maya Angelou reads a poem at Bill Clintons inauguration; Rita Dove serves as Poet
Laureate of the US from 1993 to 1995 and presents a poem Lady Freedom Among Us at the ceremony
commemorating the bicentennial anniversary of the US Capitol; Alice Walker becomes a public
intellectual and an advocate for Cuba since she has openly spoken about ending the embargo on Cuba.
5
Alice Walker got the Pulitzer Prize in 1983, Rita Dove got the Pulitzer Prize in 1987, and
Toni Morrison got the Pulitzer Prize in 1988. As the first African-American female writer, Morrison
also won the Nobel Prize for literature.

not first make his/her reputation during the late sixties and very early seventies (52).6
Only the work by Rita Dove represents for him a clear sign of a coming renaissance of
black modern poetry (52). Indeed, most African American women writers became
famous by writing novels even though most of them have began as poets because
writing poetry was the cheapest, quickest and most immediate genre to express ones
thoughts (hooks, Talking Back 10-11).7 The popularity of fiction by African American
women authors in the 1970s and 80s has almost obscured the remarkable works of
poetry.
Charles Henry Rowell, the editor of Callaloo, boldly devotes many pages of
this literary journal to the new waves of African American poetry. As he witnesses the
changing character of the African American poetry, he tries to grasp this shift by
dividing the post-1960s black poetry into three waves.8 He asks what makes these
poets different from their predecessors. Trudier Harris, another critic who follows the
emerging women writers, answers to Rowells question: These new women poets
defy all attempts to categorize them in any limiting way (Harris 232)they come

Moreover, he pushes it even further when he asserts that If one looks at male poets, as a
separate category, the contrast is perhaps even more severe and puzzling. Unlike the leading role and the
plentiful number of male poets, such as Amiri Baraka, Don L. Lee and Etheridge Knight, at the height of
the movement, impressive young black male poets seem to have all but disappeared from the scene
(52).
7
bell hooks explains this peculiar fact: Poetry was one literary expression that was absolutely
respected in our working-class household. [] For me, poetry was the place for the secret voice, for all
that could not be directly stated or named, for all that would not be denied expression. Poetry was
privileged speechsimple at times, but never ordinary. The magic of poetry was transformation; it was
words changing shape, meaning, and form. Poetry was not mere recording of the way we southern black
folks talked to one another, even though our language was poetic. It was transcended speech. It was
meant to transform consciousness, to carry the mind and heart to a new dimension. These were my
primitive thoughts on poetry as I experienced and knew it growing up (Talking Back 10-11).
8
In his view, the first wave to follow the Movement of the 1960s is represented by Rita Dove,
Yusef Komunyakaa, Toi Derrioctte, Angela Jackson, and Nathaniel Mackey. Brenda Marie Osbey,
Elizabeth Alexandr, Thylias Moss, Cornelius Eady, and Harryette Mullen are the writers of the second
wave that was educated mostly after the Civil Right Movement era. Rowell presents the third wave in
the discussed issue of Callaloo 27.4. This group is represented by Alysa Hayes, Jericho Brown, Wendy
Walters, Nehassaiu deGannes, Ronaldo Wilson, Fred Moten, and Gregory Pardlo. Some of them hold
the university positions teaching in creative writing and literature programs, or lead the poetry
workshops. However, none of these poets had published a collection of poems before this issue of
Callaloo came out.

from the South as well as from the North, they are mostly middle-class, collegeeducated, they travel to Africa to search for the African tradition or to Europe to
absorb the European tradition and, thus, expand our notions of African Americanness
into truly Diasporic dimensions (Harris 232).
According to Rowells description of the three waves, Rita Dove belongs to the
first wave following the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s. This fact demonstrates his
keeping up-to-date and supports his thesis that the African American poetry is at the
turn of the twentieth century flourishing as never before (Editors Note vii). He
observes that the poets of the first wave confront the complexity of identity mainly in
the private sphere and, thus, bring African American poetry closer to European
American poetry (A Bold Gesture vii). Moreover, he asserts that never before Rita
Dove or Yusef Komuyakaa has the black poet successfully positioned the AfricanAmerican self or persona as a representative of humankind (A Bold Gesture viii).
From the stylistic perspective, Rowell points out that they approach the poem as a
lyric space with linguistic precision and carefully crafted imaginary (The Editors
Note viii). These are some of the characteristics of Doves poetry since, as Rowell
admits that it is hard to categorize any contemporary black poet concluding:
The poets [] are beginning to build a tradition as hybrid as that which
the jazz masters created, one which disregards geography, race, culture,
class, and those other boundaries which do violence to human beings in
the West. (ix)
Crossing any boundariesliterary, socio-political, and ideologicalis the task of both
Walkers and Doves poetry.

10

I.2. Purple to Lavender: Black Feminism and Womanism

In the Statements of Feminism, Gilyard and Wardi observe that the literary
outpouring of female authors in the second half of the twentieth century complemented
African American womens fight for equality. African American womens literary
movement presented the issues concerning black women in activism and academic
work, written and oral texts, fictional prose, poetry and critical essays.
Black feminism is a political and social movement whose aim the liberation of
Black women by ending the interlocking system of racism, sexism and classism. The
fight for gender equality connects all feminists. Yet, in contrast to the feminists9 who
fought against sexism, black women had to fight against both sexism and racism. What
makes Black feminists peculiar is the act of resistance against patriarchy, fight for
racial and class equality, as Black womanhood is not circumscribed solely by issues of
gender (Gilyard and Wardi 1141). Therefore, Black feminists speak about the
intersectional position of black womenbeing both black and female.10
African American women were a visible presence in the second wave of
American womens movement. Many contemporary feminists build their theories on
the ideas of their foremothers who raised their voice to speak of race and gender before
1960ssuch as Sojourner Truth, Frances E. W. Harper, and Ida B. Wells (Beal).11
The modern Black feminism grew out of a sense of feeling of discontent with
both the Civil Rights Movement and Feminist Movement of the 1970s (Taylor 239).
Women were marginalized by the Civil Rights Movement as it focused predominantly
on the oppression of black men. Frances Beal explains that the black male has exerted
9

In accordance with bell hookss terminology, I refer to the white feminists only as
feminists. In contrast to the Black feminism, there is no official movement called White feminism. To
denote African American feminists, I use the term Black feminists.
10
The first to coin this term was Angela Davis in her book Women, Race, and Class (New
York: Random House, 1983). More on intersectionality, Frances Beal, Double Jeopardy: To Be Black
and Female.
11
For example, Sojourner Truths speech Arnt I a Woman from 1851 is elaborated in the
works by bell hooks, in particular, in Aint I a Woman. Black Women and Feminism (1981).

11

a more prominent leadership role in our struggle for justice in this country (Beal).
Many black women had to face sexism within Civil Rights groups such as the Student
Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (Pawluk et al.). Black feminists were sometimes
considered by black men as race traitors for speaking on behalf of gender parity
(Gilyard and Wardi 1143).12 In addition, women of color and working-class women
were neglected by feminists and their agendas since feminism was pre-occupied with
the issues of gender and focused primarily on the problems faced by white middleclass women.13 For example, bell hooks points out that the feminist credowork
liberates womendid not apply to African American women since most of them
already worked to make ends meet (Feminist Theory 96). Another point of departure
between Black feminists and feminists culminated around the issue of welfare since for
the Black feminists it was not just a matter of eliminating sex discrimination in whitecollar employment but one of eliminating poverty (Taylor 248). Consequently, Black
feminism developed into a parallel but separate movement (Gilyard and Wardi
1143).
Many Black feminists have preferred to call themselves womanists because
the term feminism had implicit association with white feminism (Gilyard and Wardi
1142). Womanism14 is one of the theories which evolved out of Black feminism. It was
defined by Alice Walker to mean specifically African American feminismthe
12

bell hooks asserts that To support the race, to not be seen as traitors, black women were and
are still being told to express racial allegiance by passively accepting sexism and sexist domination
(Feminism 1231).
13
bell hooks argues that feminists have not succeeded in creating a mass movement against
sexist oppression because much feminist theories emerged from privileged women who live at the
center and whose perspectives on reality rarely included knowledge and awareness of the lives of
women and men living in the margin (Feminist Theory v). Therefore, she urges the black feminists to
establish a new direction for the 1980s.
14
Moreover, in 1984 Walker explained in The New York Times Magazine the origin of this
term, I don't choose womanism because it is better than feminism...Since womanism means black
feminism, this would be a non-sensical distinction. I choose it because I prefer the sound, the feel, the fit
of it; because I cherish the spirit of the women (like Sojourner) the word calls to mind, and because I
share the old ethnic-American habit of offering society a new word when the old word it is using fails to
describe behavior and change that only a new word can help it more fully see (qtd. in Steinem).

12

unique experiences of African-American women, historically and presently.

Recognizing that there is no monolithic Black female experience (Gilyard 1142). By
definition, womanist theory is committed to the survival and wholeness of entire
people, female and male, as well as to a valorization of womens works in all their
varieties and multitudes (Williams 70). Walker explains the usage of this term in In
Search of Our Mothers Gardens. She defines three core womanist claims
audaciousness, woman- and community-centeredness (xi-xii). Moreover, she adds that
Womanist is to feminist as purple to lavender (xii). As purple and lavender are
almost identical colors, the terms womanist and feminist stand equal. Moreover, as
purple can be a shade of flower lavender, similarly womanism can offer peculiar tint to
feminism.
However, some African American feminists still prefer to call themselves
Black feminist as the adjective makes their racial experience more visible (Steinem).
The theory of womanism accentuates the humanity as many Black womens struggles
are part of a wider struggle for human dignity and empowerment (Collins 37).
Without human solidarity, any political movement cannot be fully accomplished.
Black feminists address the issues causing their oppression. Bell hooks explains
that being oppressed means the absence of choices (Feminist Theory 5). The aim of
Black feminists is to end the oppression of African American women on the economic,
political and ideological levels (Collins 6-7). The range of the Black feminists issues
have gradually expandedthey address issues of child care, employment, lesbianism,
sexuality, welfare, media image, addiction, incarceration, and the relation of Black
women to one another and the womens movement (Collins). Another aim of Black
feminists is to end violence. Bell hooks observes that it is essential for continued
feminist struggle to end violence against women that this struggle be viewed as a

13

component of an overall movement to end violence (Feminist Theory 118). Most

Black feminists have pointed out that the interlocking system of racial, gender, and
class oppression is a result of the patriarchal society and its ideology of domination.
Bell hooks explains this dimension of feminism:
To me feminism is not simply a struggle to end male chauvinism or a
movement to ensure that women will have equal rights with men; it is a
commitment to eradicating the ideology of domination that permeates
Western culture on various levelssex, race, and class, to name a
fewand a commitment to reorganizing U.S. society so that selfdevelopment of people can take precedence over imperialism, economic
expansion and material desires. (Aint I a Woman 194)
With the recent preoccupation with the literature by African American women,
there has been pressure on the black feminist critics. Barbara Christian reveals anxiety
in her essay Race for Theory as she is constantly asked to create new theory on the
black feminist literature. She argues that the task is impossible since such theory would
not be based on its relationship to practice but would be prescriptive. Christian
accentuates the difference between the white criticism and black criticism:
The Black Arts Movement of the 1960s, out of which Black Studies, the
Feminists Literary Movement of the 1970s, and Womens Studies grew,
articulated precisely those issues, which came not from the declarations
of the New Western philosophers but from these groups reflections on
their own lives. (The Race for Theory 14)
Christian praises this reflection of the black womens lives in the essay In Search of
Our Mothers Gardens by Alice Walker. She explains that instead of looking high,
she [Alice Walker] suggested, we should look low (The Highs and Lows 44), on

14

the everyday events such as cooking, gardening, quilting, and storytelling and look for
their Beauty.

I.3. Alice Walker and Rita Dove

What connects and what differentiates Alice Walker and Rita Dove? Besides
the fact that they both are prominent African American writers, they share certain
experiences in their private livesinterracial marriage, motherhood, and passion for
traveling. In addition, in their interviews they express that poetry is for them a matter
of the heart; however, their approach to poetry differs. Another factor which
differentiates Walker and Dove is their different social background. A half-generation
age gap has had significant impact on their perception of the American reality.
Alice Walker is a poet, novelist, essayist, biographer, short fiction writer,
womanist, publisher, educator, and Pulitzer Prize laureate (Andrews 413). Even
though Walker entered her literary career as a poet in 1968 and has been active in
publishing her poetry since, she has been famous mostly for her novels.15 Gates asserts
that Walkers achievements as a writer are characterized by an astonishing versatility.
She is equally at home with poetry and fiction (Preface x). She has published six
books of poetry so far, Once (1968), Revolutionary Petunias and Other Poems (1973),
Good Night Willie Lee, Ill See You in the Morning (1979), and Horses Make the
Landscape Look More Beautiful (1984), which are reprinted in a collection of poetry

15

There have been several attempts to explain why Walkers poetry has not attracted a critical
audience and why it has been omitted from the major anthologies. Thadious Davis brings up three
possible explanationsthat her poetry might be less accessible than fiction, or because there are few
poetry readers nowadays, or simply that it is a bad poetry (273). In his opinion, he argues that Walkers
poetry is so intertwined with her fiction and essays, and, thus, with her life, that we cannot tell them
apart. Therefore, we cannot speak about omitting Walkers poetry since her poetry is read within her
fiction. Nowak asserts that Walkers poetry is often regarded, however, as not so important as her
fiction because it does not capture the readers imagination as much as her novels or short stories do
(190).

15

Her Blue Body Everything We Know: Earthling Poems 1965-1990 (1991), and
Absolute Trust in the Goodness of the Earth (2003).16
Rita Dove is a poet, novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, educator,
and U.S. poet laureate (Andrews 114). She devotes her time primarily to poetry.
Another passion of hersballroom dancingis reflected in her latest book of poetry,
American Smooth. She started her literary career in 1980 when her first poetry
collection The Yellow House on the Corner came out. Since then she has published six
books of poetryMuseum (1983), Thomas and Beulah (1986), Grace Notes (1989),
Mother Love (1995), On the Bus with Rosa Parks (1999), and American Smooth
(2004). The first three books of poetry are collected in Selected Poems (1993).17 As the
second African American women poet, Dove received the Pulitzer Prize for Thomas
and Beulah in 1987.
In In Search of Our Mothers Gardens Walker names her literary influences
Zora Hurston, Jean Toomer, Colette, Anas Nin, Tillie Olson, and Virginia Woolf
who understood that their experience as ordinary human beings was also valuable,
and in danger of being misrepresented, distorted, or lost (13). Like these authors,
Walker cares for the feelings of all the women drawing on her personal experience.
Instead of generalizing, Walker has based her works on her own experience of being
an African American woman raised in the sharecropping family in the segregated
South. In her poetry, Walker does not hesitate to talk about herself directly and use
very personal voice. Nowak notes that Walker feels that her poems are most
successful when she relies on personal experience (180). Since many of her poetic
sources are her parents, her sister Molly, love affairs, her travels to Africa and Europe,
16

When analyzing Walkers poems, I quote from the collection of Walkers first four books,
Her Blue Body Everything We Know: Earthling Poems 1965-1990 and from Absolute Trust in the
Goodness of the Earth.
17
When analyzing Doves poetry written by 1993, I quote from Selected Poems. Quotations
from the following collections are indicated in text.

16

marriage, childbirth, care for all the human beings and environmental issues, to a
degree, one can justify, [], the equation of the poet with the persona in a number of
poems(180). Thus, Nowak asserts, her poetry is the best access to the personality of
Alice Walker (180). Even though Walker has not published any autobiography, we
can trace in her poetry, fiction and essays many of autobiographical features.
The poetic voice employed by Walker is corresponding to her themes. She uses
free verse; at first her poems are very short but later get more complex; the language of
the poems is simpleI dont think theres anything especially innovative. This was
the way my grandparents spoke, this is the way my mother speaks today, and I want to
capture that (Wilson 320). In her interview with OBrien, Walker comments on her
poetic style: I also attempt, in this way, to guard against the human tendency to try to
make poetry carry the weight of half-truths, of cleverness (331). The ease of her
poetic style is often contrasted with the more traditional styles: Walkers emphasis on
concrete, precise images, everyday themes and personal tone are in marked contrast to
the overwhelming dependence of much contemporary black poetry upon rhetorical
brilliance and formal experiences (Nowak 179). The author of the essay probably
meant contemporary black poets like Rita Dove.
Arnold Rampersad analyzes Doves poems as poems [that] are exactly the
opposite of those that have come to be considered quintessentially black verse in
recent years (53). The tight control of her verse is reflected in her usage of the
language and syntax which is very compressed, everything is condensed into a very
pregnant set of images (Vendler 486). Concerning her preoccupation with the
Western traditional poetic formthe sonnet, Dove previews in the preface to Mother
Love the possibilities that sonnet offers. She answers her question, Cant form also be
a talisman against disintegration? (xi) that Much has been said about the many ways

17

to violate the sonnet in the service of American speech or modern love or whatever; I
will simply say that I like how the sonnet comforts even while its prim borders (but
what a pretty fence!) are stultifying; one is constantly bumping up against order (xii).
This experimenting within the fixed poetic form is characteristic of Doves poetry as
she reveals in her interview with Dungy: I push against my sense what a poem should
be, and against what has worked technically for me in the past. I push against that
cadence and polished surface. I find it interesting to rough it up but still keep it there
(1035).
Moreover, it is interesting to compare the approaches of Walker and Dove to
the process of writing. In her interview with OBrien, Walker gives a detailed
procedure of writing her poems:
I put off writing as long as I can. Then I lock myself in my study, write
lines and lines and lines, then put them away, underneath other papers,
without looking at them for a long time. I am afraid that if I read them
too soon they will turn into trash; or worse, something so topical and
transient as to have no meaningnot even to meafter a few weeks.18
(330)
The emphasis on immediacy, unprecedentedness and spontaneity is the main aspect of
Walkers poetry. Many poems reflect her current feeling, mood, e.g. in her poem I
Said to Poetry, Walker conducts a teasing dialogue with Poetry concluding:

18

Further, Walker says, The writing of my poetry is never consciously planned; although I
become aware of certain emotions I would like to explore. Perhaps my unconsciousness begins working
on poems from these emotions long before I am aware of it. I have learned to wait patiently (sometimes
refusing good lines, images, when they come to me, for fear they are not lasting), until a poem is ready
to present itselfall of itself, if possible. I sometimes feel the urge to write poems way in advance of
ever sitting down to write. There is a definite restlessness, a kind of feverish excitement that is tinged
with dread. The dread is because after writing each batch of poems I am always convinced that I will
never write poems again. I become aware that I am controlled by them, not the other way around
(AW: An Interview 330).

18

Bullshit, said Poetry. / Bullshit, said I. (48-49). Instead of waiting for the
inspiration, Walker writes about this lack of inspiration
Dove approaches the process of writing poetry in more disciplined way. For
Dove, the poetic voice, different perspectives and poetic forms are the challenges
poetry offers. In her interview with Helene Vendler, Dove reveals her writing process:
I tend to write in fragments, and I tend to work on several poems at
once. Very often a poem will exist only as a line or two and there will
be several poems like that, and than they get added bit by bit. I think
there is a lot of editing done. My poems dont start out as five-page
rambling things which then are whittled down to on page. It doesnt
work that way. (487)
Moreover, she says that the writing of poetry needs patience, patience (Interview
with RD 1034). Indeed, Dove is considered as the most disciplined and technically
accomplished poet since Gwendolyn Brooks (Andrews 114-15).
Another aspect where Walkers and Doves approach to poetry differs is the
purpose of their writing. For Walker, poetry is the experience of the emotional
purging, the psychological exploration of self, of feelings, and meditation on ones
existence. In the interview with OBrien, Walker confesses that writing poems is
connected with the attempt to put into words her grief and, thus, overcome it:
Poemseven happy onesemerge from an accumulation of sadness. [] Writing
poems is my way of celebrating with the world that I have not committed suicide the
evening before (330).19 For Walker, writing poems is essential and useful part of her

19

Moreover, she says: It seems to me that all of my poemsand I write groups of poems
rather than singlesare written when I have successfully pulled myself out of a completely numbing
despair, and stand again in the sunlight. When I am happy (or neither happy nor sad), I write essays,
short stories, and novels (330).

19

lifefor her, poetry is not a luxury.20 Walker sees writing and art in general as
worthwhile.21 She asserts that we were given art to heal ourselves, and by extension,
to help other people to heal themselves. Otherwise, what is it for? (A Conversation
322). In the essay Saving the Life That Is Your Own: The Importance of Models in
the Artists Life, Walker describes the purpose of art: It is, in the end, the saving of
lives that we writers are about. Whether we are minority writers or majority. It is
simply in our power to do this. We do it because we care. [] We care because we
know this: the life we save is our own (In Search 14).22 These humanistic ideas
represent the base of Walkers poetry, fiction, and essays.
Rita Dove approaches poetry from a different perspectiveshe focuses more
on the form and the process of writing. In her interview with Dungy, Dove reveals that
her primary interest is the poetic language: Its adoring the very syllables on which
everything hinges. And not only the syllables, but the breath between syllables
(1038). The thrill poetry can offer is explored in her poem, : Sometimes / a word
is found so right it trembles / at the slightest explanation (17-19). In Doves
interpretation, poetry is as essential as breathing but only some can grasp its form. As
Nowak argues that Walkers poetry is celebrating life (179), I suggest for Dove
poetry is primarily a celebration of language.
Besides their shared passion for their professions, some aspects of Walkers
and Doves private lives interestingly coincide. Both Walker and Dove have
20

The phrase was taken from the title of an essay by Audre Lorde Poetry is Not a Luxury in
Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Lorde notes that We can train ourselves to respect our feelings
and to transpose them into a language so they can be shared. And where that language does not yet exist,
it is our poetry which helps to fashion it. Poetry is not only a dream and vision; it is the skeleton
architecture of our lives. It lays the foundations for the future of change, a bridge across our fears of
what has never been before (qtd. in Christian, The Race for Theory 22).
21
Walker speaks about the importance of poetry in her essay The Unglamorous but
Worthwhile Duties of the Black Revolutionary Artist, or of the Black Writer Who Simply Works and
Writes (In Search 130-38).
22
The title of Walkers essay refers to the short story by Flannery OConnor, The Life You
Save May Be Your Own written in 1953.

20

experienced interracial marriage and motherhood. In 1967 Walker married a Civil

Rights attorney Melvyn Leventhal who was supportive of her writing and her love for
nature. Their daughter, Rebecca was born in 1971. However, their marriage lasted only
until 1976 (Andrews 413). Studying for a year in Germany, Dove had the opportunity
to get to know German culture. So when she met the German writer Fred Viebahn in
1976, they found out they had so much in common that they decided to get married
two years later. They have a daughter Aviva who was born in 1983 (Dove,
Comprehensive Biography).
Traveling and learning about new cultures is another Walkers and Doves
interest that connects them. Walker made her first trip to Europe to participate in the
World Youth Peace Festival in Helsinki, Finland, in 1962 (Danielle). This trip must
have influenced her perception of her race and feeling of the other. In her poetry, she
often mentions Europe as she has experienced it and also as her sister Molly told her
about it (AW: An Interview 344).23 In 1964, Walker traveled to Africa where she
spent a summer as an exchange student in the country of Uganda (Danielle). This stay
had a profound impact on her notion of her African roots, as she revealed in her first
collection of poetry, Once. Doves imaginary is even more connected with Europe.
She spent two semesters as a Fulbright scholar at the University of Tbingen in
Germany and traveled a lot throughout Europe. She can speak five languages (Dove,
Comprehensive Biography). In her poetry, German or French expressions often
substitute what she cannot explain in English.

23

I was very surprised that a poem called The Kiss in Once was about a beautiful man / all
blond and / czech / riding through Bratislava (2-5). Moreover, in The Smell of Lebanon, Walker
speaks about a love-affair with an Arab student in balmy / iconic / prague (1-3). However, these
reminiscences on Czechoslovakia belong to her sister Molly as suggested in Walkers poem For My
Sister Molly Who in the Fifties, Who off into the university / Went exploring To London and / To
Rotterdam / Prague and to Liberia (51-54).

21

One of the things which distinguish Walker and Dove is their social
background. Walker was born in 1944 in the small farming community of Eatonton,
Georgia, as the eighth child to her parents. The rural Southern life had an impact on
her notion of being black and her position in the society. In her works she praises the
feeling of community among these people. A major influence in her life has been her
sister Molly from whom she learned that Eatonton did not mean the world (Danielle).
Rita Dove was born in 1952 as the daughter of the first Black research chemist in the
tire industry. Her grandfather moved from the South to the North in the 1930s in
search for a job. In her interview with Taleb-Khyar, Dove notes that both my parents
had experienced the transition from lower-to lower-middle-class status (348). Being
middle class, Doves parents were not forced to sacrifice for her education as much as
Walkers parents had to. Moreover, in the interview Dove acknowledges that the time
and place of her origin matter:
In Mississippi or Alabama, or for that matter, here in Virginia, growing
up would have been quite different for someone my age from growing
up in Akron, Ohio, simply because I would have gone to poorly funded
segregated schools instead of sitting next to White and Black kids, as
equal among equals, in integrated and well-equipped schools. (354)
Despite the fact that Alice Walker is only half a generation older than Dove,
their perceptions of the turbulent political environment of the sixties are different. At
the time, Walker was a member of the SNCC and participated in the March on
Washington, D.C. in 1963. Later, she helped to initiate the welfare rights movement
and to register voters in the African American communities in Georgia and later in
Mississippi (Danielle). Even though Walker was active during the Civil Rights
Movement and made her first literary appearance in the 1960s, she was not part of the

22

Black Arts Movementher poetry written at the time did not express the political
claims of African Americans (Rowell, Bold Gesture vii).24 When the Vietnam
protests and the Black Rights movement came about, Dove was too young to become
actively engaged. In the interview with Dungy, she claims it was an advantage: Ive
had the luxury of coming of age as a writer at a time when I could make these choices.
So many generations before me could not afford to attend artistically to their full
human selves because the critical reception would not permit it. They had to be black
or nothing (1036).
The activist spirit of Walker has not ceased. Nowadays, when some issues
concerning African Americans are not as urgent as few decades ago, she has turned her
attention to feminist and environmental causes. She is also an active advocate for Cuba
since she has openly spoken about ending the embargo on Cuba (USA-Cuba InfoMed
Project). In contrast to Walkers turbulent life, Dove seems to be more conservative in
terms of feminist, political, and environmental activism. As revealed in the interview
with Taleb-Khyar, she tries to strictly distinguish between her life and her writing:
Well, politically I consider myself a feminist, but when I walk into my room to write,
I dont think of myself in political terms. I approach that piece of paper or the
computer screen to search forI know it sounds cornytruth and beauty through
language (358). But is such a distinction between private and professional life
possible?
Their experience with marriage, motherhood, their social background, political
engagement, perception of the American reality infiltrates into their poetry and reflects
the changing conditions of African American women since the 1960s.

24

Besides Walker, Rowell argues, there were other African American poets like Jay Wright,
Lucille Clifton, Clerence Major, Michael Harper, Audre Lorde, Gerald Barrax, and Ed Robertson who
did not succumb to the Movements dictum that black poets should write solely for and about black
people (Bold Gesture vii).

23

II.

Her Brown Embrace Eternal: Being Black and Woman

The search for ones identity is a part of his/her quest for wholeness. Bell hooks
asserts the importance of the self-definition because
for many exploited and oppressed peoples the struggle to create an
identity, to name ones reality is an act of resistance because the process
of dominationwhether it be imperialist colonization, racism, or sexist
oppressionhas stripped us of our identity, devalued language, culture
appearance. (Talking Back 109)
The interlocking system of patriarchy, domination and binary oppositions are
considered as frequent causes of oppression and exploitation of African American
women (hooks, Talking Back 19). To name ones reality, to set the delineators of ones
identity is part of the complex process of self-definition.
Moreover, hooks argues that African American womens first encounter with the
power of domination is their most intimate spherehome and family (Talking Back
21). She explains that it is usually within the family that we witness coercive
domination and learn to accept it, whether it be domination of parent over child, or
male over female (Talking Back 21). Therefore, after analyzing the way African
American women perceive themselves, I examine their position in the female-male and
mother-daughter relationships.

24

II.1. Women with the Blessed Dark Skin: Self-definition of African American
Women
The power of self-definition has been recognized as the central key to the end
of the oppression of African American women (Collins 16). Race, gender, religion,
class, sexual preference, etc. are the terms by which to define ones identity. But how
are these terms applied? Can the individuals be classified according to these
delimiters? Where would African American women fit? How do the race, sex and class
affect African American womens perception of their identity? To which degree are
these delimiters interwoven? These are the question which Walker and Dove explore
in their poetry.

II.1.a. Prisoners of the Other

There is a difference between how the individuals are defined by the society
and how they define themselves, but the delimiters used are the same. Even though we
are aware that terms like race and gender are only sociological constructions, we
unwillingly accept and apply them to our self-definition and, hence, gain security and
strength. For example, Collins argues that because of the exposure to stereotypical
images, African American women start to accept these stereotypes and, thus,
unwillingly participate in their own oppression (93). However, the societys
delineations of any group are necessary as we are able to define ourselves only when
we are exposed to someone not like us. Collins explains that the term in the
dichotomies black/white, male/female, reason/emotion, culture/nature, fact/opinion,
mind/body, and subject/object gain meaning only in relation to their counterparts (6869). Always one of the terms in each binary set represents the Other, which one
should depend on the perspective of the individual. As duCille suggests: Why are the

25

black women always already Other? I wonder. To myself, of course, I am not Other; to
me it is the white women and men so intent on theorizing my difference who are the
Other (21). However, in praxis, the Other is usually the African American woman.
The aim of Black feminists is to revise we/Other dichotomy into we/they where we
stands for African American women (duCille 21).
Walkers attitude to the issue of the otherness is suggested in her preview to the
section Crucifixions from Revolutionary Petunias. She quotes from a personal
testament by Donald Hogan saying: I have seen men face each other when both were
right, yet each was determined to kill the other, which was wrong. What each men saw
was an image of the other, made by someone else. That is what we are prisoners of
(199). Walker questions the essence of otherness itself in her poem Each One, Pull
One:
Were we black? Were we women? Were we gay?
Were we the wrong shade of black? Were we yellow?
Did we, God forbid, love the wrong person, country
or politics?
Were we Agnes Smedley or John Brown?
But, most of all, did we write exactly what we saw,
as clearly as we could?
Were we unsophisticated enough to cry and scream? (5-11)
Walker goes even further when she cannot find any difference between people:
neither above nor below, / outside nor inside. / We are the same (47-49). The poem
concludes with the apt assertion that no matter what they do / all of us must live / or
none (86-88). By highlighting the humanistic ideals that all the people are in essence
the same, Walker wants to eliminate the inferior/subordinate position between we

26

and they. Moreover, she is aware of the risk of the discourse about this dichotomy.
In If Those People Like You, Walker observes that even though the man she meets
is superior, nice, and not at all insufferable (19-20), she is afraid of their mutual
likeness because it is a bad sign. / It is the kiss of death (23-24). Her assumption is
based on her knowledge that that is the kind of thing / we talk about / among
ourselves (25-27). Therefore, not only the dichotomy we/they is misleading but also
the discourse about it can be harmful.
Rita Dove questions the nature of otherness and the essence of segregation in
her poem Wingfoot Lake. The poem is part of Thomas and Beulah and depicts
Beulah at the Goodyear picnic on the Independence Day in 1964. She observes that:
white families on one side and them
on the other, unpacking the same
squeeze bottles of Heinz, the same
waxy beef patties and Salem potato chip bags. (10-14)
Even though African Americans can have the same access to the material things as the
dominant society, celebrate the same historical event, they are still treated as inferior;
the irrationality is here obvious.
The awareness of racism and sexism as a social construction is reflected in
Walkers poem These Days. Walker discusses the intertwined issues of racism and
sexism with her daughter Rebecca. At the end, Walker forgives the white people for
their racist actions since it is the way they are raised, / not genetics, / that causes their
bizarre, / death-worshipping / behavior (214-18). Referring to the wisdom of her
ancestors, Walker makes this interesting point:
If we were raised like white people,
to think we are superior to everything else

27

God made, we too would behave the way

they do, say the elders. (219-22)
Her thesis comes from her humanistic assumption that all the people are in essence the
same. Moreover, Walker acknowledges the importance of the educatory roles of
parents in raising their children.
Further, Collins speaks about the outsider-within stance of black women
because of their curious placement in mainstream academic discourse, feminism and
Black social and political thought (12). Paradoxically, this position offers new
perspectives on things since being treated as an invisible Other gives Black women a
peculiar angle of vision (Collins 94), and has served as a source of tremendous
strength (Collins 94). Walker describes the impact this outsider-within stance had on
her writing: I believe [] that it was from this periodfrom my solitary, lonely
position, the position of an outcastthat I began really to see people and things, really
to notice relationships (In Search 244). Yet intentional marginality is not the solution
to end oppression but only to realize it.
One of the means to search for ones identity is to travel abroad and to
experience the outsider-within position in different cultures. In her interview with
Rubin and Ingersoll, Dove speaks about her stay in Germany:
Also as a person going to Europe I was treated differently because I was
American. I was Black, but people treated me differently than people
treat me here because Im Black. And in fact, I often felt a little like
Fiammetta: I became an object. I was a Black American, and therefore I
became the representative for all of that. And I sometimes felt like a
ghost. I mean, people would ask me questions, but I had a feeling that
they werent seeing me, but a shell. So there was that sense of being

28

there and not being there, you know. Then because you are there you
can see things a little clearer sometimes. (233)
By being an African American in Europe, Dove finds herself in the position of the
Other but at the same time this perspective is fruitful for her since she can realize the
place where she belongs to and thus overcome her feeling of displacement.

II.1.b. Importance and Nonimportance of Race

Race cannot be omitted as a delimiter of ones identity since it represents
certain cultural heritage, especially when it carries the burden of the legacy of the past
atrocities committed in the name of racial difference. In her interview with TalebKhyar, Dove observes the significance of race:
Race may define large part of ones identity, especially once one gets
beyond childhood; and there are certain situations where it matters, as
well as certain experiences that would not have happened to someone of
a different persuasion, but it shouldnt become a trauma that causes
one to distrust people on the basis of their color, or to refrain from
befriending someone else because of his or her racial origin. (354)
She further explains why race represents for the African Americans a traumatrauma
of color [] if you let yourself be eaten up, by suffering under the pressure of what
others think of you, that is trauma (353). In addition, she imagines the ideal impact of
race on ones identity: In an ideal world, being Black should take on the same kind of
significance or nonimportance as being white (354). However, she adds that the racial
perception of oneself should not be omitted: Not that Id want to forget being Black,
but I would love to walk through life without anxiety of being prejudged and

29

pigeonholed on the basis of my race (354). However, as long as the notion of

blackness is connected with racial difference, Doves ideal world will stay imaginary.
One thing is how Walker and Dove speak about their racial self-definition in
their interviews and the other how they describe themselves in poetic words. Walker
portrays herself in the poem Remember? as the poor girl with the dark skin / whose
shoes are thin (3-4) and the ugly rotten-toothed girl / with the wounded eye / and the
melted ear (8-10) who through hard work and belief in hope and justice becomes the
woman / with the blessed / dark skin (20-23), repaired, healed / Listening to you
(30-31). It is interesting to trace Walkers notion of blackness in this poem as she first
speaks of being dark as something negative which then turns into being blessed as
she learns to love her skin color.
In the poem Brown, also Dove reveals her love for her skin color: Ive
always loved / my skin, the way it glows against / citron and fuchsia (19-20). At the
same time she is aware of the troubles her skin color might bring: the difference I
cause / whenever I walk into a polite space / is why I prefer grand entrances (21-23).
Whenever she steps on the parquet, Dove feels her otherness as she is there the only
black woman dancing ballroom dances. Her contrasting skin color makes her visible
and shocking.
The frequency of color symbols used by Walker in her poetry suggests her
preoccupation with the theme of race. In the interview with Sharon Wilson, Walker
explains her love for colors as she says, I think one of the things we do recognize in
black culture is that black people come in all colors. I think we have to keep
emphasizing that, and seeing it as the positive thing that it is (323). Indeed, she
emphasizes this idea in her poem Song when she keeps repeating: The world is full
of colored / people / People of Color (1-3) and They have black hair / and black and

30

brown / eyes (8-10) and Their skins are pink and yellow / and brown (21-22) and
Some have full lips / Some have thin (27-28). Moreover, she raises the question of
the colorism25 and passing of African Americans. She criticizes those people who
place emphasis on the shade of their color and strictly differentiate between black
black, brown and light skin color as if freedom and whiteness were the same
destination (In Search 291). In her poem Without Commercials, Walker urges all
the people to stop changing ones skin color or shape of body. She observes that
paradoxically, people with white skin color tan themselves and the black people bleach
their skin. She says that white color and black color are not bad at all (7) because
There are white mornings / that bring us days (8-9) and There are black nights / that
rock / us (71-73). Walker accentuates that no matter what our skin color or shape of
the body is, our essence is the same; but at the same time, each of us is a unique
individual.
In the interview with Camile T. Dungy, Dove contemplates on what the race
means to her as an artist, whether blackness is her central concern or just a concern
among many. She comes to conclusion that,
I dont really care to think about any of these themes, these
concepts when Im writing. I am in the moment; Im filtering the
moment through language and through my self, through my artistic
heart, which may be 60 percent black, 40 percent female one day, but 10
percent black, 50 percent female, 40 percent dancer [] the next.
(1036)
No matter how her perception of herself is shifting, her words imply that it is always
race and gender which shape her identity. Moreover, in the interview with Taleb25

Besides racism, sexism, classism and colonialism, Walker names colorism as another
discriminatory ill-treatment of African Americans. On further details on colorism, see her essay If the
Present Looks Like the Past, What Does the Future Look Like? (In Search 290-312).

31

Khyar, Dove comments on how her racial and gender identity infiltrates into her
poetry: as a writer I just happen to be a Black and a woman, and those perceptions
may appear on the page more often than not because those are the viewpoints Im most
intimate with, and so I filter my intentions, my subject matter, through them (358).
However, there are not many poems in which Dove deals with the theme of blackness.
Dove addresses the issue of race only in the poems referring to the history of slavery
and freedom as in Belindas Petition, The Transport of Slaves from Maryland to
Mississippi, or in the poems from On the Bus with Rosa Park dealing with the bus
boycott. Concerning Dove as a persona of her poems, she mentions her racial
awareness only when she is exposed to someone unlike her. For example, in Venus of
Willendorf, Dove is feeling her otherness in the totally white village in Austria. The
gaze of villagers is directed to her similarly as to the Paleolithic Venus.26 However, her
poems on motherhood and adolescence are more woman- than black-centered. In the
cycle about growing up, A Suite for Augustus, the only reference to her race is in a
line My heart, shy mulatto (68). Other aspects of becoming the independent
womanher sexual awareness, going to the Prom Night, traveling on her own,
scholarship to Europecould be applied to any woman regardless her race.
One of the reasons for Walkers emphasis on the images of color is the fact that
skin color is a representative feature of ones race. The visible contrast between skin
colors is explored in the poem Johann in which Walker imagines the possibility of
loving a blond German. She examines the negative element of such contrast: Blond /
And Black; it is too charged a combination (19-20). Depending on the perspective,
these colors can be seen as positive or negative as Walker observes her lovers
physical features:

26

Further on being the object of gaze, see Chapter III. 3. p. 81.

32

I shudder at the whiteness

Of your hands.
Blue is too cold a color
for eyes.
But white, I think, is the color
of honest flowers,
And blue is the color
of the sky. (30-37)27
Interestingly, while Walker imagines loving a blond German, Dove in reality does so.
Dove is aware of the different skin color of her husband when she confesses that I am
being conquered / by a cliff of limestone that leaves chalk on my breasts (20).
Moreover, Walker reveals that her poem Chic Freedoms Reflections was
inspired by a schoolmate at the college: She was the only really blackskinned girl at
Spelman who would turn up dressed in stark white from head to toebecause she
knew, instinctively, that white made an already beautiful black girl look like the
answer to everybodys prayer (AW: An Interview 333). Indeed, the white and black
is too charged a combination as suggested in another Walkers poem Because Light
Is Attracted to Dark:
Because light is attracted
To dark
As dark is
To light
Lets face
It
27

It ought to be noted that in the interview with OBrien, Walker claims that she has been
haunted by Johann as she considers this poem to be dishonest (345).

33

Youre
Fucked. (1-8)
The fatality of the black and white contrast and attraction pronounced in this poem
refers to Walkers private life. She married a white Jew and even though they
divorced, she has been in touch with him and has not married again (Danielle).
Another interesting point concerning the symbol of color is the employment of
the image of the naked body in Walkers poetry. In Once Walker admits that she has
always loved the black young men who were so courageous to swim, At a white /
beach (in Alabama) / Nude (106-108). The contrast of the black skin on the white
beach suggests contradiction. Would the exposure of a white person on the beach
imply such negation as the body of the African American does?
However, these courageous ones who are often punished for indecent
exposure (89) are mostly the women as is the case in OnceA charming / halfwit (252-53) woman is brought to the court since she likes her body so much that she
walks naked after she takes bath. She tries to convince the judge:
just because
my skin
is black
dont mean
it aint
pretty. (263-68)
The accent on the beauty of African Americans is constantly present in Walkers
works. Walker notes that the word beautiful itself was never used to describe black
women (In Search 292). Therefore, it was essential for her to love her skin color: A
necessary act of liberation within myself was to acknowledge the beauty of black black

34

women (In Search 292). Walker finds the celebration of the variety in the nature. The
nature represents the beauty as well as unrestrainedness. Therefore, she often compares
all kinds of people to flowers as in The Nature of This Flower Is to Bloom:
Rebellious. Living
Against the Elemental Crush.
A Song of Color
Blooming
For Deserving Eyes.
Blooming Gloriously
For its Self. (1-7)
And it is our task to employ our sense of vision and look for the beauty in them. In
addition, during an accident in her childhood Walker lost sight to one eye and was
exposed to the possibility of becoming completely blind (Danielle). After her recovery,
she had the ability to see the world from new perspectives and, thus, appreciate the
sense of vision more than most people.
In Walkers poems, race is often an obstruction in love and causes
disappointment. The poem dedicated to her husband Mel While Love is
Unfashionable demonstrates that such objection to the mixed raced marriage is to
their love irrelevant: While love is unfashionable / let us live / unfashionably (223).
As a result of racial difference love can be even dangerous as Walker and her white
husband experienced the animosity from both the white and black communities while
living in Mississippi (Danielle). Dove has not spoken about any objections to her
mixed race marriage in her interviews or poems. One of the reasons for her
determination to avoid speaking about her marriage and her husband at all might be the
fact that she got married in the late seventies when the interracial marriages were

35

becoming common. Moreover, Dove and her husband have not had to face the
animosity against them in their environment as they have lived in Ohio.

II.1.c. To Be a Woman
Gender is another important term in ones self-definition. However, Collins
previews that this term has a different position in defining ones identity: Though
united by biological sex, women do not form the same type of group as do AfricanAmericans, Jews, native Americans, Vietnamese, or other groups with distinct
histories, geographic origins, cultures, and social institutions (27). Despite their
efforts to find common ground in the Feminist Movement, feminism has split into
many fractions based on ethnicity.
For both Walker and Dove, being woman is the main delimiter of ones
identity. Also Nowak asserts that Walkers love poetry is obviously more womanthan black-centered (184). These poems are not necessarily optimistic as she observes
with a sigh in the Introduction to Once: how alone woman is, because of her body
(4). As still a student at Spelman College, Walker became pregnant and in order not to
disappoint her family and community who had supported her in her studies, she
decided for an abortion. However, she could not find any doctor and considered
committing suicide (AW: An Interview 327). Her depressions are reflected in the
poem Ballad of the Brown Girl28 which parallels Walkers decision to undergo an
abortion. When the doctor tries to convince heryou should want / it (25-26) and
talk it over with / your folks (28-29), the girl frustratingly asks:
did ever brown
daughter to black
28

This is another poem by which Walker is haunted for being dishonest as she acknowledges in
the interview with OBrien (345).

36

father a white
baby
take? (41-45)
On the other hand, ones female body can be a good companion in times of loneliness,
which is demonstrated in Walkers poem Every Morning when she talks to her
breasts:
Dont you see that person
staring at you? I ask my breasts,
which are still capable
of staring back.
If I didnt exercise
you couldnt look up
that far.
Your life would be nothing
but shoes. (17-25)
Mockery can sometimes be relieving. This playful poem is from Horses Make a
Landscape Look More Beautiful which was published in 1984; i.e. sixteen years after
her depressive and suicidal poems in Once.
In her latest book of poetry, Absolute Trust in the Goodness of the Earth,
Walker dedicates a section To Be a Woman to exploring womans relation to
herself, to her former and present lovers. In the poem To Be a Woman, Walker
advocates the appropriateness of feminine look since being a woman Does not mean /
To wear / A shroud (2-4). Despite the unisex era of the new millennium,
The Feminine
Is not

37

Dead
Nor is she
Sleeping (5-9)
The Feminine has been present since the Civil Rights Movement because the
sexism has not disappeared. There is always something to fight for as the sexist and
racial oppression is never-ending. Therefore, the woman is
Angry, yes,
Seething, yes.
Biding her time;
Yes.
Yes. (10-14)
The emphasis on yes evokes Walkers reminiscence on her engagement in struggle
against black womens oppression and at the same time evokes the urgency that the
battle has not finished.
Dove also perceives herself primarily as a woman. The transition from girlhood
to womanhood is essential in Doves poetry. In her interview with Vendler, Dove
explains her motif for focusing on this transformation: the fact that, when I was
growing up, I could not find anything written about what it was like to grow up as a
black woman, or woman-child, was importantI wanted to read that book, so I try to
write those poems (488). In the cycle Suite for Augustus, the imaginary Augustus
accompanies her on this journey into space (13). From discovering the pleasures of
female bodyIn this black place / I touch the doorknobs of my knees, begging to
open / Me, an erector set, spilled and puzzled (13-15)to the Prom Night when she
begins to be curious about the male body askingAnd what is that lump below your
cummerbund? (43). When she falls in love and touches the stardust, (45) she is

38

surprised How far away the world! (52). With age, there comes self-consciousness
and restlessness when she asks herself: What are you doing in your own backyard /
Holding your coat in your arms? / Theres so much left to do!(61-63). The journey
takes her to Europe and Kuwait but leaves / [] like twenty-mark bills, soft / dollars,
they bring me back (93-95), which is quite an open acknowledgement of the material
needs. These six poems encompass Doves life from girlhood to being a recognized
scholar.
Even though Walker and Dove are aware of race and gender as social
constructions, the number of their poems dedicated to this theme suggests the
importance of their self-definitionof naming their reality, experience, perception and
symbolism in poetic voice. Finding ones voice by searching for ones wholeness is a
central tenet of Walkers womanism. In addition, Walkers womanist philosophy
highlighting the beauty in diversity and humanity suggests her feminine perception.
Doves emphasis on the gender part of ones identity is part of her attempt to cross the
acknowledgement that sexism, racism and class exploitation constitute interlocking
systems of domination (hooks, Talking Back 22). If this is system was as interlocked
as some feminists argue there would be little hope of breaking it.

II.2. Council between Equals: The Theme of Marriage

Another field where Black feminists express their discontent is the female-male
relationship in a marriage as the African American communities are mostly patriarchal.
The womans assigned position at home running the household and raising children
implies the physical limitations on Black womens mobility (Collins 105). Besides
the social oppression, women are also exposed to psychological and physical abuse at

39

home. There resistance to their subordinate position is usually accompanied with the
disillusionment and ends in divorce.
Important aspect of sexism in the African American communities is its fusion
with racism. Bell hooks argues that extreme expressions of sexism, misogyny, made
visible by overexploitation of women by men, become in [the mens] minds a
dysfunctional response to racism (Feminism 1227). Sexism in the African
American communities reflects the position of women in the dominant society in the
US where subjugation is presented as natural, already in place, not something black
men can create, only something they exploit (Feminism 1227). According to
McCall, this exploitation is often justified because a common response to oppression,
or abuse, is to become an abuser (qtd. in Feminism 1227). No matter how perverse
this assumption is, it is a commonplace for most men.
African American womens oppression within marriage happens on two
dimensionsthe psychological abuse and the physical abuse. These two spheres of
male domination over women often intertwine in order to accentuate their subordinate
position. In the poem Warning, Walker warns her female readers against
psychological abuse which is a commonplace in many relationships since
To love a man wholly
love him
feet first
head down
eyes cold
closed
in depression. (1-7)

40

By portraying and articulating the unreasonable submissiveness of women, Walker

wants her readers to realize their position in a marriage. She urges the women to raise
their heads, face their partners and break their silence. Walkers works are often
criticized for giving too negative images of male characters; however, she defends
herself by saying that these are the men she has known (Danielle).
Even though Dove avoids referring to her role as a wife, she observes the
subordination of women on the example of others marriages. In the poem Venus of
Willendorf, Dove describes the relationship of a woman to her husband as Where
thou goest, there I went also (64). These words imply submissiveness as she would
do anything for her husband. Dove explores also another dimension of psychological
abuse of women. The other extreme of the males gaze is the overlooking woman as if
she is invisible. Dove observes that men in Willendorf worship the statuette of Venus
but neglect their wives: What made one sculpture so luscious / when there were real
women, layered / in flesh no one worshipped? (58-60). One of the wives confesses to
Dove: He wont dare touch me, / she argues, and risk destroying / everything. (7173). Like the Venus, the women are on display and no one should touch them.
Another aspect of the male domination over African American women is their
physical abuse. The theme of violence is explored in many works by African American
women since rape and other acts of overt violence that Black women have
experienced, such as physical assault during slavery, domestic abuse, incest, and
sexual extortion, accompany Black womens subordination in a system of race, class,
and gender oppression (Collins 177). When speaking about the sexual abuse of
African American women, one significant aspect is often omittedthe fact that most
Black women are raped by Black men. [] the unfortunate current reality is that many
Black men have internalized the controlling images of the sex/gender hierarchy and

41

condone either Black womens rape by other Black men or their own behavior as
rapists (Collins 179).
Walkers poems dealing with love explore both the positive and negative sides
of a female-male relationship. Woman is often limited only to her body which a man
can seize whenever he wants to. Walker points out that sexual abuse can also happen
within a marriage. Such exploitation is explored in the poem The Thing Itself as her
husband mocks her after she refuses to make love with him. He says: Now I am going
/ to rape you (1-2), assuming that she mockingly opposes his violent act since
according to him all real women / really / like rape (17-19). As if the macho men
were convinced of the rightfulness of their action. Walker goes further in this poem to
discover the roots of the mens perverse assurance that women enjoy pain. Walker
remembers her grandmothers time and finds out that
There was no
pornography
in her world
from which to learn
to relish the pain. (30-34)
The objectification of a female body in the pornographic industry, which is the
phenomenon of the second half of the twentieth century, distorts a notion of sexual
perception and self-respect (Walker, You Cant Keep a Good Woman Down 42).
One way for African American women to oppose their subordination is to
break their silence and find a voice to defend their equal position in a relationship. To
make women speak is a lifelong task of bell hookss philosophy:
The act of speaking is a way women come to power, telling our stories,
sharing history, engaging in feminist discussion. [] The next stage

42

would have been the confrontation between women and men, the
sharing of this new and radical speech: women speaking to men in a
liberated voice. (Talking Back 129)
Revising the female-male relationship by speaking about its inequality is one of the
means for African American women to end sexism and reach liberation and
independence.
The act of resistance is central in Walkers activism. Through her poetry she
urges all the women of color to raise and resist their oppression. An example of a
courageous woman who would rather die then live in pretense is given in the poem
On Stripping Bark from Myself:
Because women are expected to keep silent about
their close escapes I will not keep silent
and if I am destroyed (naked tree!) someone will
please
mark the spot
where I fall and know I could not live
silent in my own lies
hearing their how nice she is!
whose adoration of the retouched image
I so despise. (1-10)
Denial of being a passive woman is explored in the poem Woman Is Not a Potted
Plant. Walker compares a passive woman to a plant in the pot that is admired for its
beauty but is dependent on someone who waters and feeds her. On the contrary, a
woman / is wilderness / unbounded (27-29); she walks the earth because she is free /
and not creepervine / or tree (34-36). The choice to be and do whatever she wants is

43

the assurance of her freedom. Moreover, Walker urges the women to search for her
own source to nurture them.
Dove as a poet takes a different approach to giving voice to oppressed women.
In her interview with Taleb-Khyar, Dove explains why empowering a woman is not a
central theme in most of her poetry:
If there are women who are, [], silent because they are afraid to
speak, or if their personal conditions are such that theyre unable to
write though they would love to, then I feel concern for them. And I
believe their stories must be heard; their circumstances must be
improved so that they can tell their stories. But if I decided to fight for a
cause, Ill do that off the page. Im not going to bring my arguments
into my work, unless they happen to fit the situation of that particular
character. (359)
Such silent woman whose life is conditioned by historical and social circumstances
is Doves grandmother who appears in her book of poetry Thomas and Beulah.
In the introduction to Thomas and Beulah, Dove previews that The poems tell
two sides of a story and are meant to be read in sequence (137). The lifestory of
Thomas and his wife Beulah is given in strict chronological order, beginning in the
early twentieth century and continuing until their death in the sixties. The first side of
the story, Mandolin is narrated from a male perspective and the other side, Canary
in Bloom, from a female perspective. Even though they live in marriage, their stories
are not the same as each of them mentions different events in their life. Shoptow
argues that The lives of Thomas and Beulah rarely intersect: There are few common
events in their stories and no Faulknerian climax in which their worlds collide. They
rarely think about each other (Beulahs name does not even appear in Thomass side);

44

and when they do, it is with an absentminded fondness (375). Thomas and Beulah
live together but they do not share their inner livestheir feelings, thoughts, and
dreams are kept in secret; they are living segregated lives (Shoptaw 374). For
example, Thomas and Beulah perceive their courtship differently. In Courtship,
which is told from Thomass perspective, when proposing to Beulah he asks himself:
what was he doing, / selling all for a song? (33-34). Moreover, Thomas is playing
the mandolin and then wraps his scarf around her shoulders. However, Beulahs
perspective in Courtship, Dilligence, suggests her silent objections:
Cigar-box music!
Shed much prefer pianola
and scent in a sky-colored flask.
Not that scarf, bright as butter.
Not his hands, cool as dimes. (9-13)
This courtship seen from two perspectives is rather melodramatic. Their silence can be
perceived as a decision to keep their emotions hidden in favor of more rational aspects
of their engagement.
While Walker focuses on the active resistance to racial and sexist oppression,
Dove explores another means to deal with oppressionto undergo a journey in order
to escape it. This escape is another sphere where Thomass and Beulahs stands
diverge. Collins argues that the theme of journey is crucial for defining the mans and
womans approaches to their oppression (105). She observes that
Black womens journeys, though at times embracing political and social
issues, basically take personal and psychological forms and rarely
reflect the freedom of movement of Black men who hop trains, hit

45

the road, or in other ways physically travel in order to find that elusive
sphere of freedom from racial oppression. (105)
In contrast to Thomas, who underwent his journey from the South to the North on the
boat, Beulah is more static, located in one place, tied down to her children. Their
relationship is not equal since like her caged canary, Beulah is bound by her roles as
wife-mother and has very little space of her own within which to move
(Geourgoudaki 428). However, Collins suggests that black women may remain
motionless on the outsidebut inside? (105). Inside, Beulah imagines traveling to
places like Paris, Versailles, Orient, or China. In The Oriental Ballerina, Beulah
dreams over a ballerina pirouetting on her jewel box. She imagines these places in
order to escape her poor social conditions and to bring back the thrilling element into
her life after she realizes that her life is just an unfulfilled promise (Shoptaw 378).
Also Walker explores this theme of living parallel but separate lives within the
marriage of her parents. In the poem My Mother Was So Wonderful, Walker
observes:
My father
Hapless
Never
Seemed
To notice
Her unmistakable
Glory
& let thirty
Years
Go by

46

Without
Be-ringing her. (6-17)
The fact that the lives of Doves grandparents and Walkers parents pass by but meet
only on rare occasions does not suggest any sadness or melancholy. Walker
accentuates this necessity of living each life separately even in marriage. In her poem
Beyond What, she warns that the lives should be Shared. But inviolate. / No
melting. No squeezing / into One (8-10) because usually it is the woman who
subordinates her dreams and needs to her husbands. The ideal state is when they both
make compromises as she concludes this poem:
To choose, renounce,
this, or that
call it a council between equals
call it love. (14-17)
In her latest book of poetry Absolute Trust of the Goodness of the Earth, Walker
pushes her ideal image of the female-male bond in a marriage even further. In her
poem The New Man, Walker wishes to be again married to someone who can caress
her, To give me / Shoulder / Rubs (12-14). Moreover, she requires this man not
question her bisexuality: What! Youve made love / To other / Women? (24-26). She
imagines him to say with apprehension:
All your life
You wanted
Your sisters
Your mother
& women everywhere
To be

47

Happy. (29-35)
Neither should he oppose her infidelity but say instead:
Do you need
Help
With this one
Too? (46-49)
And finally, her ideal man should take over the household chores and do all the
shopping. In ironic voice, Walker admits that these features of the new man are
unreachable. But it is a nice vision to dream about.
Besides rape and subordination, the theme of disillusionment and divorce is
another negative side of a marriage. The period when Walker went through divorce
was marked by years of depression and frustration later revealed in the collection
Good Night Willie Lee, Ill See You in the Morning. An even greater frustration comes
when it is a woman who wants to end the relationship and her relatives do not support
her in doing so. In the poem Did This Happen to Your Mother? Did Your Sister
Throw Up a Lot? Walker expresses the confusion in her feelings when she discovers
that I love a man who is not worth / my love (1-2). She asks because in her timein
the seventies, it was not common for a woman to raise the issue of divorce even
though the marriage did not satisfy her. As the poem proceeds, she explores the
essence of her disillusionment when she says,
I thought love would adapt itself
to my needs.
But needs grow too fast;
they come up like weeds. (24-27)

48

However, even though the woman feels that she cannot bear any longer to stay with a
man she does not love, she does not have enough courage to do something about it as
the poem concludes: And I will never / unclench my teeth long enough / to tell him
so (43-35). When the woman in the poem More Love to His Life finally finds the
courage, her husband is very surprised and perplexed:
You are sending me away!
Stop! You are hurting me!
I love you more than anything
in my life! (21-24)
Despite such blackmailing, she endures and realizes that perhaps he was comic /
instead of myself (27-28). Moreover, at such situations which threaten the mans
dominant position, the man treats woman as his object and claims her love as referred
in the poem He Said:
He said: I want you to be happy.
He said: I love you so.
Then he was gone.
For two days I was happy.
For two days, he loved me so.
After that, I was on my own. (1-6)
No matter how painful the process of divorce is, in the end comes relief. And Walker
sets the example of such a courageous woman who went through divorce and walked
out even stronger than before.

49

II.3. Even As I Hold You, I Am Letting Go: The Theme of Motherhood

Besides being a wife, the other female social roles within the family are as a
daughter and a mother. Collins observes that The mother/daughter relationship is one
fundamental relationship among Black women (96). Raising children in the African
American community is the task of women. Mother often has the most immediate
impact upon shaping the offsprings personality as Collins notes: Countless Black
mothers have empowered their daughters by passing on the everyday knowledge
essential to survival as African-American women (96). This passing on of the
knowledge from mother to daughter is central in Walkers theory of Womanism: the
majority of our grandmothers knew, even without knowing it, the reality of their
spirituality (In Search 237). This wisdom of foremothers which they rarely
acknowledged made Walker curious so she went in search of the secrets of what has
fed that muzzled and often mutilated, but vibrant, creative spirit that the black woman
has inherited, and that pops out in wild and unlikely places to this day (In Search
239). This creative spirit is compared with a profusion of flowers that have the ability
to grow in all different places at any time. Walker uncovers the legacy of the
foremothers while searching our mothers gardens.
Walker pays homage to women like her mother: supporters of their families,
helpful friends, important role-models to their daughters, and bearers of the tradition.
In Women she praises these Headragged generals (14) who even under poor social
conditions were able
To discover books
Desks
A place for us
How they knew what we

50

Must know
Without knowing a page
Of it
Themselves. (19-26)
Being also the daughter to such woman, Walker in her poem My Mother Was So
Wonderful acknowledges the deeds of her mother. She worships her mother for being
wonderful and wise that she even wanted to marry her. Her mother rather wore a ring
received from her daughter than from her husband. Her mothers decision to / belong
/ to / me (49-52) made Walker proud. Walkers uncritical admiration of her
foremothers sometimes borders with their idealization.29
On the other hand as the mother, Walker acknowledges the importance of her
daughter Rebecca in her life: Twenty-five years weve been together. One of my
longest relationships, and the most important (Anything We Love 75). In the interview
with Sharon Wilson, Walker reveals the crucial role of her daughter on her writing.
Walker wants to capture the moments of her life in her works and, thus, preserve it
especially for my daughter, who has a very different kind of upbringing and who
doesnt get to Georgia very often. I want her to know when she grows up what her
grandparents, her great-grandparents, sounded like, because the sound is so amazingly
alive (320). Several poems by Walker are dedicated to Rebeccain My Daughter is
Coming! Walker expresses the anxiety and fuss about how her daughter will accept
her new house; whether she will like her newly refurbished room, Or will she see
only / the torn curtains? (28-29). In reality, Rebeccas life parallels in many aspects
with her mothers life. Like her mother, Rebecca had an abortion at an early age, is
openly bisexual, speaks and writes about third-wave feminism, has been a contributing
29

The theme of idealization of the African American community and especially its women is
explored in the Chapter III. 3. p. 83-84.

51

editor to Ms. magazine, and divides her time between New York and California
(Rebecca Walker).
The theme of motherhood is also explored in Thomas and Beulah as the main
characters have four daughters. In Motherhood, Dove analyzes the stage when the
womans first child is born and she has to acquire her new social role as the mother.
Being aware of the babys fragility, the woman is anxious: She dreams the babys so
small she keeps / misplacing it (1-2) or that she drops it and it explodes / like a
watermelon, eyes spitting (5-6). In her interview with Vendler, Dove reveals the
background for writing about motherhood in Thomas and Beulah:
I realized that I was in fact feeding some of my own experiences as a
young mother into Beulah and I was feeling incredibly uncomfortable
about it until I realized that I was harboring an unspoken notion that
poems about children and mothers are mushy and you just dont write
those things. Once I became aware of that, I realized that what I had to
do is to write these poems and that I was covering up a part of my life
that was very important. (489-90)
Therefore, realizing that her role as the mother is essential in her life, Dove decided to
further explore her relationship with her daughter in her next book of poetry eloquently
called, Mother Love.
The importance of motherhood is even stronger as Dove dedicates a whole
book, Mother Love, FOR my mother, TO my daughter (viii). In addition, her next
poetry collection On the Bus with Rosa Parks was also written for Aviva, for Fred
(6) and American Smooth for Fred and Aviva (5). Based on these dedications one
would assume Doves preoccupation with both her daughter and husband in her works.

52

Interestingly, however, Dove explores only the mother-daughter relationship. But why
does she omit any reference to her husband in her poetry?
Dove published Mother Love when her daughter Aviva was twelvethe age
when a girl undergoes the physical and psychological transition from girlhood to
womanhood. As Dove explains in the preface to Mother Love, in the lives of all
mothers there comes a point when a mother can no longer protect her child, when the
daughter must go her own way into womanhood (xi). The unexplored aspects of this
life stage made Dove write Mother Love.
The ancient story of Demeter and Persephone serves as a parallel to a modern
mother-daughter relationship. This cycle depicts the mothers unbounded care for a
child from birth when he/she is absolutely dependent on the mother until the stage
when he/she is independent and thus responsible for himself/herself. As indicated in
the title poem Mother Love, motherhood is for Dove an inherent ability: Who can
forget the attitude of mothering? / Toss me a baby and without bothering / to blink Ill
catch her, sling him on a hip (1-3). In Persephone, Falling, the mother represents a
refuge as she says what a child should or should not do; however, This is how easily
the pit / opens. This is how one foot sinks into the ground (13-14) when the child
starts to differentiate between his/her personality and the mothers, or even rebels
against her protective steps which might seem to be stifling. Such a rebellion can
evoke a negative response in the mothers eyes as the child does not fit her
expectations. In the poem The Bistro Styx, the mother meets her daughter in a
Parisian caf and is shocked how her daughter looks, how she behaves. She asks her
daughter:
Hows business? I asked, and hazarded
a motherly smile to keep from crying out:

53

Are you content to conduct your life

as a clich and, whats worse,
an anachronism, the brooding artists demimonde? (15-19)
While having dinner the mother asks her daughter:
But are you happy? Fearing, I whispered it
quickly. What? You know, Mother
she bit into the starry rose of a fig
one really should try the fruit here.
Ive lost her, I thought, and called for the bill. (67-71)
After trying the fruit of love, the mother loses her daughter to an unknown man. The
only permanent thing left to the mother which reminds her of her child in Used is the
loosened belly skin after giving birth: weve earned the navels sunk in grief / when
the last child emptied us of their brief / interior light. Our muscles say We have been
used (5-7). In the end of the cycle, the mother reconciles with the fact that her
daughter does not belong to her wholly and enjoys the occasions she can spend with
her.
The stage when a daughter separates from her mother is also the theme of
Walkers poem Even As I Hold You. Walker confesses that Even as I hold you / I
think of you as someone gone / far, far away (1-3). Even though Walker does not
obstruct her daughters liberation from her mother, she is aware of the fact that ones
daughter is ones daughter for the whole life. This ambiguous relationship of mother
and daughter is revealed in the concluding lines: Even as I hold you / I am letting go
(14-15). The moment of separation is also captured in Doves poem Exit from
Mother Love:
Well, the worlds open. And now through

54

the windshield the sky begins to blush,

as you did when your mother told you
what it took to be a woman in this life. (11-14)
This emphasis on the continuation of the female element in each generation is
demonstrated in the poem I Cut My Finger Once on Purpose as the mother makes a
wish: When you grow up, I hope you have / a daughter just like you (13-14).
Moreover, the mothers knowledge is often connected with folk wisdom and proverbs,
as indicated in Rusks: As my mama always said: / half a happiness is better / than
none at goddam all (12-14) or in Parlor: Mom says / things harden with age; she
says / Grandma is happier now (18-20).
The images of motherhood in the African American family are sometimes
contradictory. Collins observes that on the one hand, the motherhood can be limiting
factor in the development of ones self as the controlling images of mammy, the
matriarch, and the welfare mother and the practices they justify are designed to
oppress (118). On the other hand,
motherhood can serve as a site where Black women express and learn
the power of self-definition, the importance of valuing and respecting
ourselves, the necessity of self-reliance and independence, and a belief
in Black womens empowerment. (118)
Walkers image of grandmothers and mothers sometimes inclines to the former
interpretation of motherhood as she mostly depicts them as saints (In Search 232).30
On the other hand, Dove places more emphasis on the mother-daughter separation as
the daughter learns the power of self-definition, self-respect, self-reliance, and
independence. Besides few hints, in her poetry Dove does not specify the mother or the

30

See Chapter III.3. p. 83-84.

55

daughter as being African Americans since such separation is present in all

relationships between mother and daughter no matter what their race is.
In addition, Walker and Dove present the readers another dimension of the
motherhood; they accentuate that we all have a common motherthe Earth. Walker
ends Her Blue Body Everything We Know with the environmentalist message:
We have a beautiful
mother
Her green lap
immense
Her brown embrace
eternal
Her blue body
everything
we know. (23-31)
Doves mother-daughter cycle also ends in the acknowledgement of the Earths
powers. In Her Island, Dove asserts that
Only Earthwild
mother we can never leave []
..
[] knows
no storys ever finished; it just goes
on, unnoticed in the dark thats
all around us: blazed stones, the ground closed. (149-50, 152-55).

56

The personification of the Earth as the mother is often employed in the feminist
symbolism in order to compare the similar burden of women and the Earthboth are
exploited but both endure.

To conclude the analysis of the private sphere of black womens identity, the
self-definition of African American women is so complex that it is hard to distinguish
between their racial and gender identification. Concerning the terms in binary
oppositions, African American woman is always the Otherunless she sees herself
from her perspective. This is what Walker does; her poems are written from her
perspective and are based on her personal experience, which makes her poetry so
vivid. By exposing her soul in her poetry, Walker offers her embrace and thus allows
many readers to identify with. However, Doves poetry suggests warning that this
embrace must not be suffocating.

57

III.

One of Many, Each of Us: Black Womens Oppression

African American women have to face sexism and racism at all levels of the
society; they have been oppressed not only at home, but also outside of home. In her
book, Black Feminist Thought, Patricia Hill Collins defines three dimensions of Black
womens oppression. First, through the exploitation of Black womens labor and their
market victimization as dehumanized objects, the oppression gains an economic
dimension. Another area where Black women are discriminated is political sphere as
African American women have been denied the rights and privileges routinely
extended to white male citizens. Finally, it is the ideological dimension to the Black
womens oppression that seems to be the most powerful. Through the controlling
images of Black women that originated during the slave era and which are mostly
negative, the dominating society justifies Black womens oppression. Collins
concludes that Taken together, the seamless web of economy, polity, and ideology
functions as a highly effective system of social control designed to keep AfricanAmerican women in an assigned, subordinate place (7).
Walker and Dove articulate and present these spheres of oppressions of all
women and, in particular, African American women in their poetry, and thus make
their readers realize them. The aim of Black feminists is not only to describe their
oppression but also to offer means how to fight it.

III.1. Mulification: The Economic Oppression of African American Women

The assigned position of Black women within a family unit reflects the type of
their labor force. Some feminist women do not consider entering the work market as

58

liberating since they already have to work to support their family. hooks cynically
remarks that for poor and working class women work was neither personally fulfilling
nor liberatorythat it was for the most part exploitative and dehumanizing (Feminist
Theory 97). African American women have been exploited in the labor market as they
have been assigned heavy work, mostly in the domestic sphere (Beal). The poor social
conditions have concerned not only African American women but also women in
South Africa (Walker, Anything We Love 56) as explored in Walkers poetry. The
position of these women has been at the lowest levels of the social stratification.
However, the end of the twentieth century was marked by the social and economic
empowerment of some African American women. Since many African Americans
have become middle class, the theme of class and class mobility is getting more
important in the works by African American writers.
Black womens position in the labor market is often described as those of
mules since as dehumanized objects, mules are living machines and can be treated
as part of the scenery (Collins 43).31 This metaphor is reflected in Walkers poem
Janie Crawford in which Walker pays homage to the main character of Zora Neale
Hurstons novel Their Eyes Were Watching God who leaves her first elderly husband
because he exploited her at work for an ambitious man who, however, wants her to be
an image of a perfect wife to reinforce his powerful position in the town. After her
second husband dies, she falls in love with a drifter and gambler Teacake. Even though
their marriage is full of ups and downs, Janie is happy since she has a marriage with
love that she wanted. This search for ones happiness is examined also by Walker:
a woman unless she submits is neither a mule
nor a queen
31

The comparison of the position of women to mules was first employed in Zora Neale
Hurstons novel Their Eyes Were Watching God.

59

though like a mule she may suffer

and like a queen pace
the floor. (6-10)
No matter how hard she works, her self-respect is what counts. Walker admires the
bravery of the women who do not let the feelings of desperation overwhelm them
despite their physical exploitation.
The poor social conditions are also reflected in Doves cycle Thomas and
Beulah. Beulah has to work in order to support the family budget at a menial job. She
hates her job, muttering in The Great Palaces of Versailles while ironing delicate
dresses for white women: Nothing nastier than a white person! (1). She is also sick
of her work as The steam rising from a cranberry wool / comes alive with
perspiration (4-5). But she comments on her exploitation: Swamp she born from,
swamp / she swallow, swamp she got to sink again (7-8). In contrast to Thomas who
all the time while working wanted to sit / right down and cry (7-8), Beulah employs
a cynical view that keeps her away from self-pity and allows her to wander off with
her thoughts. This comparison suggests a difference in the notion of work force from
the mans and womans perspectives. African American woman just keeps the grudge
like the mule.
Another aspect of the poor social conditions in the African American
communities is the issue of poverty. The rise of the middle-class African Americans
served also to accentuate the desperate plight of other black Americans (Brinkley 980).
Moreover, there has been a radical increase in the number of single-parent, femaleheaded black households since the 1970s (Brinkley 980). Being raised in the farmers
family in the postwar South, Walker experienced poor social conditions within the
African American community. Her perception of the striking economic difference

60

between African Americans and white people in the rural South is reflected in her first
book, Once, which, being published in 1968, bears the most visible patterns of her
critique of social, economic and political injustice in the American South.
Moreover, Walker is concerned not only about the poor social conditions of
American women but also of other women of color. In her much-quoted poem, The
Diamonds on Lizs Bosom, Walker emphasizes the unequal distribution of wealth in
the South African communities,
The diamonds on Lizs bosom
are not as bright
as his eyes
the morning they took him
to work in mines
The rubies in Nancys
jewel box (Oh, how he
loves red!)
not as vivid
as the despair
in his childrens
frowns.
Oh, those Africans!
Everywhere you look
theyre bleeding
and crying
Crying and bleeding
on some of the whitest necks

61

in your town. (1-19)

A possibility how to fight the economic exploitation of the Third World is expressed in
the following poem, We Alone. Walker urges all the people to neglect the gold as a
precious material and thus devalue it since Wherever there is gold / there is a chain,
you know (5-6). Instead of gold, people should appreciate feathers, shells and seashaped stones as jewelry. This step, which creates the base for Walkers humanistic
activism, could be our own revolution (15).
The issue of poverty is even more striking in comparison to Walkers class
background and her social status nowadays. Walkers poetry encompasses almost four
decades of her life. Her first book of poetry, Once, was published in 1968 when she
was a student being aware of the sacrifices which her parents had to make in order to
provide her with higher education. Since then she has undergone a huge transition;
nowadays, her income allows her to run several houses (Walker, Absolute Trust ). Just
the fact that her first poems were written on small scraps of paper in cold student
dormitories (AW: An Interview 329) and her latest poems were written in her
summer house in Mexico (Walker, Absolute Trust xi), shows her social and economic
empowerment. Yet in the poem Talking to My Grandmother Who Died Poor,
published in Good Nigh, Willie Lee, Ill See You in the Morning in 1979, Walker
comments on her social conditions while talking to her grandmother: no doubt I will
end my life as poor as you / without the wide veranda of your dream (1-2). Ironically,
two decades later she enjoys her life in her houses in California and in Mexico. Even
though she admits the rising materialistic needs: though I may stray / and lust after
jewelry / and a small house by the sea (17-19), it is the possibility of giving it all up
which she finds challenging: yet I could give up even lust / [] / that is the new
dream (19, 24). In Absolute Trust in the Goodness of the Earth, the latest collection,

62

published in 2003, Walker refers in some poems to her gained wealth. Overflowing
with the material abundance in the poem New House Moves, she asks: How am I to
live / In such prosperity? (45-46). Her humanistic ideas are opposed to such an
accumulation of wealth as she experiences it and she is frustrated since I receive more
/ It appears to me / Than I ever give (51-53). Walker still painfully remembers the
poor social conditions of the community she has come from. One of the reasons for her
repudiation of her material possession and the wish to share it with the rest of the
world can be traced to her childhood as she asserts that Poverty never prepared me /
For this wealth (54-55).
Moreover, Walker acknowledges that her social and economic empowerment
has happened due to her ancestors since she has come to wealth by retelling their
stories. In My Ancestors Earnings, she admits that
For over a decade
My ancestors
Earned for me
Over a
Million dollars
A year. (1-6)
This fact raises melancholy since Walkers predecessors could not enjoy their earnings
during their lives. To remind Walker of her destiny the ancestors speak to Walker in
her poem, Ancestors to Alice. They warn her that she should not be distracted by her
materialistic needs but rather focus on passing on her message:
Your true work
Is to
Remember us

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To sing our names

Recount
Or even record
Our deeds
Laugh at
Our jokes. (19-27)
To conclude, Walker strives to fulfill her mission set by her ancestors responsibly and
successfully.
The theme of class stratification and its injustices is also explored in Doves
poetry. In the interview with Dungy, Dove observes that the aesthetics of many
contemporary writers is shaped by the notion of class as she asserts that class
becomes all important (1036). Moreover, she argues that class, not race, is todays
defining factor:
Ive become cautious about class and race distinctions because I feel
that sometimes we, as African Americans, will opt for the easier mark
of race as the factor that galvanizes inequalities when in fact it is due to
classquite often class more than race, at least nowadays. Not that race
doesnt matter; but class is an issue we havent quite dealt with yet.
(1037)
This opinion is implied in Thomas and Beulah as its protagonists are depicted rather
from the social than the racial point of view. All the social and economic factors of
their lives, such as Thomass journey in quest for the job opportunity from the South to
the North, the humble wedding to Beulah, their economic empowerment in the
twenties followed by the lost of Thomass job and poor living conditions during the
Depression, Beulahs hiring for a part-time job after the end of the Second World War

64

as the US economy missed the male labor force, and her participation in the march on
Washington in 1963, implicitly refer to Thomas and Beulahs race.
While Walker observes the poor social conditions in the American South and in
South Africa, Dove focuses on the urban aspects of the economic oppression. In
Thomas and Beulah she explores the inhumane, dangerous working conditions as the
factory Thomas works in blows up, the poor housing conditions as they live in a dark
damp house, and their need of car.
The isolation in the predominantly female working environment is explored in
Doves poem The Great Palaces of Versailles. Beulah gets a job in Charlottes Dress
Shoppe to contribute to the familys income. She is entrapped in her small work place
behind a curtain like a canary in the cage.32 Georgoudaki notes that this curtain
symbolizes her double exclusion from the white female world of the shop and
American society in general, both as a black and as a woman who is judged by white
standards of femininity and beauty (428). The economic position of African
American women refers to their ambivalent relationship with white womenby
sewing, ironing, washing the most intimate clothes of white women, African American
women create an essential part of white womens private lives and at the same time
they are excluded from any external affiliation with them.
The economic empowerment of African American women is explored in
Doves poem My Mother Enters the Work Force from On the Bus with Rosa Parks.
Being a generation younger than her grandmother, Doves mother has better
opportunity to get a qualified job. She attends the ABC Business School in the
afternoons and in the evenings she sews clothes. Even though her days run in
stereotypes: And then it was day again, all morning / at the office machines, their

32

Beulahs side of the story bears the title Canary in Bloom.

65

clack and chatter / another journeyrougher, / that would go on forever (17-20), the
reward is satisfying, no more postponed groceries, / and that blue pair of shoes! (2324). This will to endure is powered by the vision of earning money and, thus, reaching
higher social position.
The social and economic position of Alice Walker and Rita Dove is reflected in
their poetry. They refer to the conditions they are most familiar withWalker with the
social aspects of the rural South and Dove with the industrial North. Moreover, their
class transition is analyzed in their poetry as Walker describes her economic
empowerment through writing and Dove highlights the upward mobility of her
grandparents and parents.

III.2. On the Same Bus: The Political Oppression of African American Women
Besides race, gender, and class discrimination, African American women have
to face also political oppression. Collins argues that there have been two main areas of
Black womens activism. First, it is the struggle for group survival [in order] to create
Black female spheres of influence within existing structures of oppression (141). The
second dimension of African American womens activism is their struggle for
institutional transformationnamely, those efforts to change existing structures of
oppression (142). Therefore, African American women have been participating in
civil rights organizations, labor unions, feminist groups, boycotts, and revolts (142).
Since the 1960s the conception of the fight against political oppression of African
American women has changed, however, the emphasis on activism as the struggle for
empowerment remains the central theme of Black feminists since Empowerment
involves rejecting the dimensions of knowledge, whether personal, cultural, or
institutional, that perpetuate objectification and dehumanization (Collins 230).

66

In the following chapter, I explore Walkers and Doves attitudes to African

American womens political activism as reflected in their poetry. Being aware of the
possibility of the abuse of masses, Walker and Dove explore the theme of the means
by which the political and social changes can be brought about. Moreover, the way
society treats its revolutionaries is another indicator of its political environment. As the
fight for the equal rights and privileges of African Americans is not as urgent as
before, there is a tendency among contemporary writers to treat the turbulent period of
the Civil Rights Movement as a matter of the past. An example of such trend is Doves
poetryher aim is to capture various events from the slavery era until the 1960s as a
documentary.
Being raised in the segregated South, Walker in her childhood witnessed the
atrocities of political and social oppression in the African American community. As a
student she became politically activebecame a member of the SNCC, participated in
the March on Washington, D.C., monitored the voting procedure in Mississippi
(Danielle). Remembering these turbulent years during the Civil Rights Movement in
the interview with Evelyn White, her eyes fill with tears. In Once Walker claims that
if the
South
rises
again
It will not
do
so
in my presence. (219-26)

67

The painful times experienced in the South made Walker move to Massachusetts and
later to California (Danielle).
Walker represents the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement as she expresses
her activist spirit in her poetry. She is aware of the injustices in the political sphere as
she comments on the disputable circumstances of voting in The Democratic Order:
Such Things in Twenty Years I Understand. Walker confesses that her father used to
beat her when she was crying since
Hed had
enough fuss
he said
for one damn
voting day. (7-10)
By beating her, Walkers father demonstrated his confusion and the accumulated anger
about the unfair conditions of the voting in African American communities.
Moreover, Walker comments on the political situation in her poetry when she
criticizes the American presidents. In the long poem These Days, Walker pays
homage to several of her friends or relatives; all of them are connected by their search
for the essence of things. One of them is Gloria who gives talks about womens rights
/ childrens rights / mens rights (138-40). Her speech makes Walker think of the
long line of Americans / who should have been president, but werent (141-42). She
names many African Americans and Native Americans, both men and women, starting
from Crazy Horse and Sojourner Truth to Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Steve
Wonder, and Shirley Chisholm, who have been famous for their brave and
revolutionary acts. Their unrealized possible contributions to the end of oppression,
bribery and other negative outcomes of the current presidents, make Walker frustrated:

68

It is imagining to make us weep with frustration, / as we languish under real estate

dealers, killers, and bad actors (152-54).
African American women had to face sexism also within those organizations
which fought for equality and liberation of African Americans. In 1964, female
members of SNCC published a paper that listed numerous situations where female
members were placed in positions below their skill level, while less qualified males
were placed above them. The paper compared the male oppression of women to the
white oppression of blacks (Pawluk et al.). Moreover, Walker explores the issue of
sexual exploitation within these organizations in her poem He Said Come. The logic
behind the sexist approach to women is appalling:
He said come
Let me exploit you;
Somebody must do it
And wouldnt you
Prefer a brother? (1-5)
The man is convinced that his helpful act liberates her and, thus, she should not
reject it: Come [] / Before the opportunity / Passes away (6, 10-11).
Rita Dove also explores the theme of political oppression of African American
women. However, her attitude to the issues of political activism differs from Walkers
in many aspects. First, because of her young age, Dove was not engaged in the Civil
Rights Movement or in any political organization. She takes this movement as the
matter of her parents generation (Interview with RD 1030). Starting her literary
career in the eighties, Dove belongs to the wave of Black poets who can be
characterized by their dramatic departure from the poetry of the Black Arts
Movement of the 1960s and 1970s (Rowell, Bold Gesture vii). In her much quoted

69

poem, Upon Meeting Don L. Lee, In a Dream, Dove expresses her reaction to the
black nationalistic aesthetics and its tendency to use poems the way a Jacobin mob
used cobblestonesbecause there was nothing more destructive at hand (Rampersad
54). The poem describes the poet Don Lee who was major representative of the Black
Arts Movement as an aging man with lashless eyes, / Always moving in the yellow
half-shadows (1-2). As if encapsulated in the sixties, his female admirers chant and
stretch their beaded arms to him (8) when he gives a public speech starting Seven
years ago (10). Then, all of sudden, Dove raises her voice: Those years are
gone--/ What is there now? (11-12) to criticize him for dwelling too much in the
past. And Lee starts to cry; his eyeballs / Burst into flame (12-13) since he is not
able to offer anything new.
Rampersad tries to explain Doves determination to break new grounds. He
claims that instead of obsession with the theme of race, one finds an eagerness,
perhaps even an anxiety, to transcendif not actually repudiateblack cultural
nationalism in the name of a more inclusive sensibility (53). Nonetheless, Rampersad
argues that there are some dangers of Doves determination because it is not possible
to completely avoid the standards of the black writers of the half-generation before her
(53). For example, he presents Upon Meeting Don L. Lee, In a Dream as being
written unconsciously in a spirit of reaction (53). Indeed, this poem is in its theme and
voice quite different from Doves other poems.
The means by which a revolution can be fought is another theme explored by
the Black feminists. A revolution can occur on both the public and private level, the
revolutionary commitment can be active or passive. Different revolutionaries at
different times emphasized different means of revolution. In Revolutionary Petunias
Walker is questioning black revolutionaries belief in violence and their contempt for

70

the backward blacks of the South (Russell 121). Russell claims that Sammy Lou,
the main character of Revolutionary Petunia, is considered incorrect by her more
informed revolutionary brothers and sisters, for nowhere in her life is there evidence of
blackness (121). As if the visibility of blackness, the Black Pride, was the main
indicator of ones revolutionary commitment.
After the demise of the Civil Rights Movement, Walker moved from her
external demonstrations against political injustices to a more internal perspective of
fighting the oppression. In the preface to Revolutionary Petunias, Walker
acknowledges that these poems reflect [] my growing realization that the sincerest
struggle to change the world must start within (153). Her criticism of the angry
revolutionaries who follow their blind ideology is revealed in the poem The QPP:
The quietly pacifist peaceful
always die
to make room for men
who shout. (1-4)
Paradoxically, the pacifists die and the names of the angry ones are scrawled large in
someones / blood, on this survival / list (8-10). In her poem Lost My Voice? Of
Course. Walker poses the question of the exploitation of poetry for political activism.
She argues that if the poetic voice is meant to be bloody (14) and if the poems / of
love and flowers are / a luxury the Revolution / cannot afford (3-6), then she has lost
her voice. The quotation of Albert Camus previewing Revolutionary Petunias
demonstrates Walkers wish to connect the notion of revolution with the notion of
beauty: Beauty, no doubt, does not make revolutions. But a day will come when
revolutions will have need of beauty (187). For Walker this day has come.

71

Doves preoccupation with individuality indicates her approach to the means of

revolution. Time spent in Europe allowed Dove to see the American cultural context
from new perspective. She observes that one of the greatest dangers for people in this
country [the US] is the temptation to think in terms of groups rather than to extol each
persons uniqueness (An Interview with MC and RD 361). In her poem Upon
Meeting Don L. Lee, In a Dream, she criticizes the tendency of people to create
masses. The fans admiring the elderly poet are compared to the black trees (5). In
addition, in The Peach Orchard, Dove walking through orchard is getting dejected
since the branches, / bank upon bank of them brimming / like a righteous mob (2022). Even though the mobs are powerful their ideology is often blind and leads
nowhere: trees, shedding all / over themselves (26-27). Her poem concludes in a
repudiation of such a means of revolution: Only a fool / would think such frenzy /
beautiful (28-30). Like Walker, Dove points out the possibility of abuse of the masses
and praises more the individual acts of rebellion.
Another means by which Walker and Dove express their political activism is
the way they see and approach history. Being African American women, both Walker
and Dove cope with the legacy of their foremothers and forefathers. Their poetry
reflects lives of African Americans from the slave era until nowadays. Doves poem
Dawn Revisited suggests both Doves and Walkers emphasis on historical events:
If you dont look back, / the future never happens (5-6).
One reason for Doves interest in the theme of history is her determination to
see things from different perspectives. In her interview with Dungy, Dove admits that
she works from several angles: There are many sides to the truth, so many facets, and
I like exploring a situation from different angles (1032). This poetic devise is
connected with her idea of getting beneath the official History (1032). For instance,

72

her poem The Transport of Slaves from Maryland to Mississippi consists of three
stanzas each presented from a different perspective. The story of Thomas and Beulah
is also explored from Thomass side and Beulahs side. In addition, Mother Love
contains two perspectivesmothers and daughters. Most of these perspectives
present the unexplored sides of events. In her conversation with Rubin and Ingersoll,
Dove explains her focus on the underside of history, on the overlooked events, on
things which no one will remember but which are just as important in shaping our
concept of ourselves and the world we live in as the biggies (232). In the interview
with Dungy, Dove outlines her perception of history: As a black woman, from a very
early age I was acutely aware of the discrepancies between history as I experienced it
and History as it was reported (1030). She distinguishes between official history,
personal history and the speculative history and the intersection between these kinds of
history fascinates her. And she admits that her poetry often emanates from that
crossroads; I love the view it gives me (1030). In the interview with Taleb-Khyar,
Dove points out the challenging aspect of this juncture: What fascinates me is the
individual caught in the web in history (356). In Thomas and Beulah, Dove describes
the lives of her grandparents in their socio-cultural background. She mentions their
mishappenings during the Depression Years and the March on Washington.
Walker pays homage to the revolutionaries who were so courageous as to voice
or manifest their discontent. She mentions the no-name revolutionaries as well as the
famous onesMalcolm X, Martin Luther King. In the poem The Abduction of
Saints, Walker is frustrated as she observes that these leaders of the Civil Rights
Movement are nowadays treated as saintsAs it was with Christ, so it is with
Malcolm / and with King (1-2). Similarly in Malcolm, Walker criticizes his
idealization as those who claim to know him offer as proof / an image stunted / by

73

perfection (2-4) but do not remember the small, less popular / ironies of the Saint
(8-9), such as that he preferred all women free / and enjoyed a joke / and loved to
laugh (11-13). In Each One, Pull One, Walker observes that by assimilation with
the dominant culture, the heroic deeds of some African Americans have started to fade
out:
But lately you have begun to help them
bury us. You who said: King was just a womanizer;
Malcolm, just a thug; Sojourner, folksy; Hansberry,
a traitor (or whore, depending); Fannie Lou Hammer,
merely spunky; Zora Hurston, Nella Larsen, Toomer:
reactionary, brainwashed, spoiled by whitefolks, minor;
Agnes Smedley, a spy. (60-66)
While some revolutionarys contributions have been distorted, some have been
forgotten in the course of time at all. Therefore, the aim of Each One, Pull One is
that everyone should pull a revolutionary into the sun in order not to let him or her be
forgotten.
Walker points out that the female partners, like wives or mothers of the
legendary revolutionaries, are often omitted. Even though these women shared lives
with the famous ones, had impact on them and were constant source of strength, their
deeds have not entered history. In Killers, Walker pays homage to the mother of
Martin Luther King, to Mrs. Alberta King. Walker exasperatingly comments on the
assassination of Kings mother in 1974first they killed the dreamer (2) and then
they have killed / the dreamers mother (3-4). Her assassin, Marcus Chenault also
planned to murder Martin Luther King, Sr. (Walker, Her Blue Body 344). Another
influential woman neglected by historian is DuBoiss second wife Shirley Graham. In

74

Women of Color Have Rarely Had the Opportunity to Write About Their Love
Affairs, Walker comments on the recently published Grahams account of her life
with DuBois, His Truth Is Marching On. Walker observes that her version of
DuBoiss / career / is perhaps more revealing of herself / than of her late husband (912). She criticizes Graham for giving an account of the food DuBois ate, for speaking
about the celebrities she met as DuBoiss wife. In a way, Graham tries to place herself
as an equal partner to her husband but her attempt leaves empty handed as Walker
observes,
There are no black legends comparable to
that of Helois
and Abelard
or even of Bonnie
and Clyde. (39-43)
The reason for her unsuccessful attempt to fill this gap is because Women of Color
have rarely had / the opportunity to write about their love / affairs (36-38) and, thus,
are not proficient at presenting themselves as equal counterparts to the male heroes.
The title poem of Revolutionary Petunias depicts the mishappening of Sammy
Lou, a poor black Southern backwoods woman (14), who kills the white man who
murdered her husband. Otherwise, she is a plain woman who opposes violence, and
loves her flowersher last words before her execution are: Dont yall forgit to water
/ my purple petunias (25-26). In these words she emphasizes the internal perspective
of her own revolution which is for her over. Nowak asserts that this one sentence
contains the essence of Alice Walkers vision: a revolutionary without a love for the
everyday is not a whole person (184). In the interview with OBrien, Walker gives a
detailed analysis of this poem. She explains that Sammy Lou is more a rebel than a

75

revolutionary (since you need more than one for a revolution) (343). But Walker adds
that she is notwhen you view her kind of person historicallyisolated. She is part
of an ongoing revolution. Any black revolution, instead of calling her incorrect will
have to honor her single act of rebellion (343). The importance of each persons
resistance to abuse, each act of rebellion even though it might seem pointless is
emphasized in another Walkers poem, On Stripping Bark from Myself:
I find my own
small person
a standing self
against the world
an equality of wills
I finally understand. (17-22)
Walker emphasizes the importance of self-respect since without it there would not be
anything worth defending.
A similar woman, who according to her own mind makes the best decision, is
depicted in Doves poem The Transport of Slaves from Maryland to Mississippi.
The poem is based on the true story; Dove introduces the poem by giving the historical
details: On August 22, 1839, a wagonload of slaves broke their chains, killed two
white men, and would have escaped, had not a slave woman helped the Negro driver
mount his horse and ride for help (32). The woman is perplexed when asked why she
did it: I dont know if I helped him up / because I thought he was our salvation / or
not (1-3). It was natural for her to help him explaining, I am no brute. I got feelings.
/ He might have been a son of mine (12-13). But what about the rest of the slaves who
were later caught and killed? Her humanistic attitude was quite unusual in those days
and is, thus, worth mentioning. Both this woman and Sammy Lou acted according to

76

their best convictionthey underwent their personal revolutionregardless of the

consequences.
In the last decade, African Americans who publicly fought against segregation
during the Civil Rights Movement have been acknowledged as heroes by the
Congress. In 1999, one of those being awarded the Congressional Gold Medal was
also Rosa Parks (Rosa Parks). Not coincidentally, in the same year, Dove dedicates
her book of poetry On the Bus with Rosa Parks to the ordinary women who by
refusing to sit in the rear of the bus entered history. Besides Rosa Parks, Dove also
mentions Claudette Colvin and Mary Ware, nee Smith. In Rosa, Dove tries to
capture the moment when Parks was sitting on the bus; her portrayal is like a
description of a snapshot: How she sat there, / the time right inside a place / so wrong
it was ready (1-3). In the poem, The Situation is Intolerable, Dove wonders why
the words, like Intolerable: that civilized word (1), are sometimes more important
than the acts: Our situation is intolerable, but whats worse / is to sit here and do
nothing (19-20). However, sitting and doing nothing can sometimes also be regarded
as a means of resistance. In Rosa, Dove observes that Doing nothing was the
doing (7) even though Rosa Parks was not aware of her act as political. She just was
tired after the whole day of heavy work. Similarly, in Claudette Colvin Goes to
Work, the title character justifies her act of sitting in front of the bus: I help those
who cant help themselves, / I do what needs to be done and I sleep / whenever
sleep comes down on me (33-35). Behind their act is also the social critique of the
exploitation of the African American womens labor force.33
According to Dove, there have been many brave unknown African American
women who have made history without any intentions. Her interest in these small

33

This issue is explored in further detail in Chapter III.1. p. 58-60.

77

people is manifested in her dedication of Museumfor nobody who made us

possible (65). For example, On the Bus with Rosa Parks, Dove imagines the rest of
the no-name people sitting on the same bus which entered history. Just the step to
behave more confidently and respect oneself more is a revolutionary act. Dove
examines this change in behavior in Lady Freedom Among Us. Saying, dont lower
your eyes / or stare straight ahead to where / you think you ought to be going (1-3)
and dont cross to the other side of the square / dont think another item to fit on a
tourists agenda (17-18), Dove urges black women to look around and, thus, make
themselves visible. Moreover, even though African American women seem plain,
Dove warns the passers-by: dont you think you can ever forget her / dont even try /
shes not going to budge (26-28). As black women gain power and privileges, there is
no choice but to grant her space (29), it is no longer possible to marginalize them.
Finally, Dove accentuates the importance of the rise of self-confidence of every single
woman for she is one of the many / and she is each of us (31-32). This emphasis on
the significance of individuality is the base of Doves poetry.

III.3. Brown Venus: The Ideological Oppression of African American Women

The act of resistance also happens on the ideological level as African American
women try to fight the stereotypes concerning their physical and psychological
characteristics. Collins notes that Ideology represents the process by which certain
assumed qualities are attached to Black women and how those qualities are used to
justify oppression (7). These controlling images of Black women that originated
during the slave era have undergone changesfrom the mammies, Jezebels, and
breeder women of slavery to the smiling Aunt Jemimas on pancake mix boxes,
ubiquitous Black prostitutes, and ever-present welfare mothers of contemporary

78

popular culture (Collins 7). These are mostly negative images but there are also
images of Black women that tend to idealize them, e.g. the revolting Black
Goddess/Black Queen (Gates, Introduction 4). In addition, African American women
have been exploited as exotic figures with sensuous bodies. The means of resistance of
these controlling images has been one of the central issues of Back feminism. Collins
notes that Resisting by doing something that is not expected could not have
occurred without Black womens long-standing rejection of mammies, matriarchs, and
other controlling images. This tradition of resistance suggests that a distinctive,
collective Black womens consciousness exists (92). By uprooting, contradicting and
avoiding the stereotypes in their works, Walker and Dove try to liberate African
American women from any ideological entrapment.
The nature of the stereotypes of African American people is explored in
Walkers poem First, They Said. She observes that the dominant society has always
used degrading terms to describe African Americans and, thus, control them. Even
though African Americans are labeled as savages, immoral, inferior, and backward,
most black people are aware of falseness of these attributes. With the successes of the
Civil Rights Movement, these terms had to be revised: They said: You are right. It is
not your savagery / or your immorality or your racial inferiority or / your peoples
backwardness (26-28). Now, society argues, What is at fault / is your existence
itself (30-31). Therefore, they give African Americans money to raise the army and to
exterminate themselves. Even though they take the money and raise the army, Walker
wittily concludes: And now, the people protected, we wait / for the next insulting
words / coming out of that mouth (38-40). Walker proves that labeling and
stereotyping is one thing and reality another. The power of African Americans lies in
their unexpected actions.

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Moreover, Walker points out the fact that African Americans have always been
considered incorrect. The degrading terms denoting African Americans she names in
First, They Said have served the dominant society as a tool in search of the
originator of all the mishappenings in history: they said we were / obstructing
Progress (15-16), then they said that you eat / too much and your villages take up too
much / of the land (19-21). Another incorrect person is depicted in Revolutionary
Petunias. In the interview with OBrien, Walker says that the main character, Sammy
Lou, is engaged in a final struggle with her oppressor, and won, but who, in every
other way, was incorrect (342). Walker finds her character incorrect for her name,
for being a farmers wife, for going to church, for naming her children after Presidents
and their wives, but the most incorrect thing about Sammy Lou is that she loves
flowers (AW: An interview 342). She is incorrect even on her way to the electric
chair as she reminds her children: Dont yall forgit to water / my purple petunias
(25-26). Walker explains why gardening is considered backward: I have heard it said
by one of our cultural visionaries that whenever you hear a black person talking about
the beauties of nature, that person is not a black person at all, but a Negro. This is
meant as a putdown, and it is (342). If Sammy Lou was a correct person, she would
not care for her flowers and would consider it her duty to let ugliness reign (342).
However, she does not succumb to any ideological mold and leads her life without
considering the correctness of her action. Walker praises these women as the most
venerated saints of the black revolution (342). She concludes that It seems our fate
to be incorrect [], and in our incorrectness, stand (342).
The objectification of the female body is another core theme against which
Black feminists fight. In Well. Walker illuminates her relationship with her friend, a
Central American poet. Even though she admires him for his revolutionary spirit and

80

his concern with ecology, she is appalled by his poem describing the women in
Grenada. He accentuates their sensuous lips which reminded him / of black legs (4849), their breast / [] / as coconuts (69-71); moreover, these women are wearing
red dresses and are always eating something colorful. Such treatment of the female
body as an object makes Walker frustrated: Well. Nobody ever said / supporting other
peoples revolutions / would make us / ill (72-75). She pities that
the revolution
never seem
to arrive
for the black woman
herself.
Only for her black lips
or her black leg
does one or the other
arrive; (80-88)
Comparing the revolution to the body, there are always some issues more accented and
some marginalizedlike the poets emphasis on certain parts of the female body.
Until the woman is seen as a complex unit, the revolution cannot be accomplished.
Dove comments on her experience as being treated as an object when she was
in Germany. She says that in Germany I was on display in a strange environment
where some people pointed with fingers at me and others pitied me as a symbol for
centuries of brutality and injustice against Blacks (An Interview with MC and RD
351). Dove describes her feeling of being exposed in her poem Venus of Willendorf.
Her presence in a small Austrian village of Willendorf is compared to the discovery of
a Paleolithic statuette of a woman who has sprawling buttocks and barbarous thighs, /

81

breasts heaped up in her arms / to keep from spilling (25-27). Dove is treated as this
statuetteshe is the object of their gaze:
Have you seen her? they asked,
comparing her to their Venus
until she could feel her own breasts
settle and the ripening
predicament of hip and thigh. (45-49)
On the other hand, the tender care for Venus how the carvers hand had loved her, /
that visible caress (77-78) is what Dove longs for. Envying love and admiration
Venus receives after 20,000 years, makes Dove aware of the time spam wishing: if
only I could wait forever (86).
The issue of the objectification of the female body is also analyzed in Doves
poetry. The poem Cameos is a chronicle of an African American family from the
twenties to the forties. It describes Lucille and her husband Joe and their children.
Even though Joe is not satisfied in his marriage, he admits that he is attracted to his
wife, saying: Those eyes, bright and bitter / as cherry bark, those / coltish shins, those
thunderous hips! (72-74). Thus, he cannot leave her. This restriction of women to her
body and its fatality has been a common excuse of their oppression.
Collins acknowledges that according to the cult of true womanhood there
have been four virtues a woman should possess: piety, purity, submissiveness, and
domesticity (71). As objects, women have been considered to be submissive and
passive. The fight against passivity is another theme of Black feminists. In Singsong,
Dove explores the passivity of a girl who is as a new toy / waiting for my owner to
pick me up (2-3), waiting for a husband to marry her. Also Shakespeare Say refers
to the woman as a passive sexual object. Shakespeares description of women as

82

uglyskinny legs, lie gap / waiting behind the lips / to suck him in (37-39) is quite
brutal.
Concerning the negative stereotypes, Dove explores their groundlessness in
Lake Erie Skyline, 1930. A boy sees his sisters as laughing, take his shoes away /
and bring them scraped / and ordinary / back (63-66). He sees their acts as voluntarily
humiliating. Therefore, he concludes the observation of his sisters with the following
proposition: Idiots, / he thinks. No wonder / theres so many of them (66-68). Just
because he is clever and his sisters are not, does not mean that they are inferior. This
sexist statement has not been uncommon among many African American men.
Gallop argues that one of the results of the objectification of black women is the
exoticisation and idealization of black race (qtd. in Abel 121). Walkers description
of African American women sometimes borders on their idealization. In Women,
Walker refers to her foremothers as stout, clean women who cared for their childrens
education and were tender as well as bold Headragged Generals / Across mined /
Fields (14-16). In In Search of Our Mothers Gardens, Walker speaks about the
women who have been so abused and mutilated in body, so dimmed and confused by
pain, that they considered themselves unworthy of any hope (232). However, in the
selfless abstraction their bodies became to the men who used them, they became more
than sexual objects, more even than mere women: they became Saints (232). The
comparison of African American woman to a Saint or Goddess is explored in her poem
Goddess. On the examples of such women, Walker lists their characteristics; the
Goddess must be trustworthy, patient, helpful and ingenious, with wild laughter and
song, loyal, have equanimity, be capable of incredible storytelling and have the scent
of / My mothers / Roses (21-23). The importance of smell is pointed out in Chic

83

Freedoms Reflections. Walkers friend from the SNCC who just returned from Paris
smelled like spring / & love / & / freedom (29-32). Gates asserts that
black womens writings since 1970 represent worlds in which the Black
Goddess/Black Queen stereotypes of the Black Arts movementand
the corresponding Black Warrior/Black Prince stereotypes for menare
rejected as cardboard stereotypes just as pernicious as the SamboMammy types of the white racist plantation tradition. (Introduction 4)
bell hooks is also cautious about the idealization and exoticization of African
American women. She argues that, Assimilation, imitation, and assuming the role of
rebellious exotic other are not the only available options and never have been
(Yearning 20). Despite the fact that Walker uses these ideal images of African
American women, she is aware of its risks since any overidealization can draw the
rebellious voice from the margin to the centre.
Dove is more careful when treating the image of African American women in
her poetry. Even though she dedicates several poems to the women who participated in
the bus boycotts, she does not idealize them. Her detached description of these women
reflects her determination to keep objective voice.
To gain power and be able to sustain it is an essential aspect of Black feminist
thought. Walker suggests that African American women should reject these controlling
images by uprooting them. This message is revealed in her poem Be Nobodys
Darling where she warns: Be nobodys darling; / Be an outcast (1-2) because If
those people like you / it is a bad sign (Walker, If Those People Like You 1-2).
Instead, she pleads to Take the contradictions / Of your life (3-4) in order not to fit
any stereotype, both positive and negative.

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Walkers subversive tone is suggested in her frequent usage of the word

contradiction. African American women should not succumb to any mold of being
black and femalethey should contradict themselves. Walker notes about
Revolutionary Petunias that the whole book is a celebration of people who will not
cram themselves into any ideological or racial mold (AW: An Interview 343). In
her poem The Girl Who Died #2, Walker admires a singer naughty of verse / and
hated judgments (2-3) since she wove a life / of stunning contradictions (5-6).
However, the girl is killed because she would not lie; / and was not born / to be
correct (31-33). Life full of contradictions can be risky since the society takes such
rebellious ones as unexpected and therefore, powerful, in need of elimination.
Moreover, in While Love is Unfashionable, Walker breaks the customs and calls:
While love is unfashionable / let us live / unfashionably (1-3). Another reference to
her determination to omit any social customs is present in her poem What Ovid
Taught Me. Having dinner, her partner asks her about the serving protocol when the
wine should come. She cries out: What does it matter? (1), For Gods Sake / Lets
not be traditional! (10-11).
Dove uses another way to fight the stereotypesby avoiding them and the
discourse about them. In the poem Homework, which is a part of the portrait of the
African American family in Cameos, Brian is listening to a teacher who is talking
about The Negro and his song (1) and then makes Brian sing, assuming that all
African Americans are excellent singers. Being embarrassed that he cannot sing, Brian
decides to take Science, most / Exacting Art (16-17). In science, ideology is limited
to minimum. Dove accentuates this kind of resistance as her father experienced ithe
became the first Black chemist in the American tire industry (An Interview with MC
and RD 348).

85

Besides uprooting the stereotypical images of African American women by

contradicting them, another means of resistance is to deny all expectations. In Anything
We Love Can Be Saved, Walker observes that she has realized the futility of
expecting anyone, including herself, to be perfect. [] But it is the awareness of
having faults, I think, and the knowledge that this links us to everyone on earth, that
opens us to courage and compassion (xxv). In her poem Expect Nothing, Walker
urges all the people: Expect Nothing. Live frugally / On surprise (1-2). She preaches
to all the humans that they should not live according to how the society expects them
to be. African American women should not expect and be expected to behave
according to their race and gender since it is too limiting. Moreover, they should be
rebellious, living like the revolutionary petunias because a woman / is wilderness /
unbounded (27-29) as expressed in A Woman is Not a Potted Plant.
Just as Walker describes herself as the untamed revolutionary petunia, Dove
sees herself in her poem Describe Yourself in Three Words or Less. She depicts
herself in more than three words but her main characteristics are three. First, she denies
any attempt to categorize her, saying: Im not kind of person who praises / openly, or
for profit (1-2) because, as she continues, Im not a kind at all (4). Like Walkers
petunia, Dove is
itchy and pug-willed,
gnarled and wrong-headed,
never amorous but possessing
a wild, thatched soul. (5-8)
Second, Dove describes her thoughts as boats on the sea that are left to their destiny
they either drift off / maddened, moon-rinsed (11-12) or they dock in the morning /
scuffed and chastened (13-14). She does not pursue any of her ideas, the situation is

86

simply how it is, and I gather them in (15). Finally, Dove claims that she believes in
change. By writing, here singing, she proceeds from one thought to another and then I
will stop, and forget the singing. / (See? I have already forgotten you.) (21-22). Her
life is like a journey with many digressions and without a specific destination. But is
not the emphasis on the wilderness and unboundedness of African American women
only another stereotype?
Even though Walker and Dove want to restrain any labeling and stereotyping, it
is hard for them to avoid it. When speaking about certain group based on the ethical,
racial, gender, or cultural differences, it is inevitable use particular names to describe
it. Therefore, Walkers description of her foremothers as Goddesses can be regarded as
another stereotype since not all African American women of earlier generations were
such Saints as she describes. Moreover, the insistence on contradicting the stereotypes
can also become a kind of stereotypical behavior. The stereotypes seem to run in a
vicious circle which is hard to cross. Therefore, this awareness makes Walker keep
idealizing African American womenif it is impossible to eliminate the stereotypes,
then, at least, they should be positive.

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IV.

Complicated Balance: Conclusion

Having the opportunity to encompass Walkers and Doves poetry from their
literary beginnings until the latest publishing of their poetry collections, the time span
allows me to trace the changes in their thought and also in Black feminism in general.
My analysis of the important issues of Black feminists on the examples of Walkers
and Doves poetry suggests a shift in their preoccupations. However, it ought to be
noted that my reading and analysis of the Black feminists issues and African
American poetry can be influenced by different cultural background and context I
come from.
Since the system of binary oppositions as a tool for ones self-definition started
to be discredited, there has been an ongoing discussion of the appropriateness of the
conception of the otherness. Most feminists of color aim to eliminate the notion of
their being the Other in the social hierarchy which reflects the ideology of
domination. Despite their efforts not to have their poetry branded in terms of their race
and gender, it is hard for them to omit their notion of being the Other.34 Even
though, in her interview with Taleb-Khyar, Dove admits that her race and gender are
important parts of her everyday experience, her poems are mostly racially neutral
(358). Some feminists argue that this determination to avoid bringing their racial
perception into contemporary literature is part of the de-essentialization of race
(Abel 114). Moreover, Abel argues that the shift towards not paying too much
attention to the issue of race has occurred primarily through the intervention of
material rather than textual differences and under the aegis of Marxism and cultural

34

See Walkers poem Each One, Pull One and Doves poem Venus of Willendorf.

88

studies rather than deconstruction (114). Indeed, social oppression and classism have
become the central theme of Black feminists. Reflecting their own experiences, the
issue of class mobility is explored in both Walkers and Doves poetry. Dove suggests
that class is an issue we havent quite dealt with yet (Interview with RD 1037).
Walker pays attention to the unequal distribution of wealth in South Africa. The
critique of the capitalist system which is based on the ideology of domination is seen
as the main cause of the oppression of any minority (Beal).
Black feminists argue that also works by African American women have been
exploited by the capitalist system. As these works by African American women writers
were acclaimed by academic critics, both black and white, and as they reached the
mainstream, there has literally been an unusual interest placed on these authors. There
arises the question, Why have weblack womenbecome the subjected subjects of
so much contemporary scholarly investigation, the peasants under glass of intellectual
inquiry? (duCille 21). Bell hooks argues that mass culture produces, promotes, and
perpetuates the commodification of Otherness through the exploitation of the black
female body (Black Looks 21).35 However, duCille goes further, claiming that in the
1990s, the principal sites of exploitation are not simply the cabaret, the speakeasy, the
music video, the glamour magazine; they are also the academy, the publishing
industry, the intellectual community (22).36 The move of African Americans and of
their means of expressing their discontent from the margin of the society to the centre

35

Bell hooks aptly explains this peculiar situation since within commodity culture, ethnicity
becomes spice, seasoning that can liven up the dull dish that is mainstream white culture. Cultural
taboos around sexuality and desire are transgressed and made explicit as the media bombards folks with
a message of difference no longer based on the white supremacist assumption that blondes have more
fun. [] In many ways it is a contemporary revival of interest in the primitive, with a distinctly
postmodern slant (Black Looks 21-2).
36
duCille arrives at the heart of the matter when she concludes: Much of the new found
interest in African American women that seems to honor the field of black feminist studies actually
demeans it by treating it not like a disciple with a history and a body of rigorous scholarship and
distinguished scholars underpinning it, nut like an anybody-can-play pick-up game performed on a
wide-open, untrammeled field (31).

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is pointed out in Doves interview with Taleb-Khyar. Dove observes that in the US, it
has become part of the system to treat political trends like fashion: protest is absorbed;
it is subsumed and marketed. Protest is treated as a joke or made into fashion; it can be
printed on t-shirts and even become an excuse for the denigration of whole groups of
people (360-61). In other words, the opposition to the mainstream has also become
marketable commodity.
Therefore, more emphasis needs to be placed on individuality. Instead of
relying on the organization of masses to enforce socio-political changes, Black
feminists highlight the importance of the individual struggle. Dove assumes that
insisting upon that individuality is ultimately a political act, and to my mind, this is
one of the fundamental principles a writer has to uphold, along with a warning: dont
be swallowed up. Dont be swallowed up! (An Interview with MC and RD 361).
Another aspect of the insistence on the perception of people as individualities concerns
the stereotypes; if people were seen as individuals there would not be any labels and
controlling images describing certain ethnical, racial, gender, cultural groups
applicable.
Bearing in mind the words of bell hooks that being oppressed means the
absence of choices (Feminist Theory 5), one must admit that Walkers emphasis on
different kinds of colors and flowers suggests an abundance of choices. Interestingly,
there is a reference in Doves poem Black on a Saturday Night criticizing Walkers
symbolism put into the flower petunia. Even though Dove criticizes the naming and
labeling: meaning we put in petunias / instead of hydrangeas and reject / ecru as a
fashion statement (16-18), she does not do anything else in her poetry. Instead of
putting meaning into flowers she uses birds as the main metaphor for variety and
abundance. Just as Walker refers to herself as a petunia, Doves leading bird is a

90

canary. To conclude in the words of Toni Morrison when commenting the position of
African American women: we are not, in fact, other. We are choices (31-32). And
in the contemporary world, the freedom of choice is the most valued right and
guarantee of ones equality.
In the political sphere, the emphasis is more placed on the undermining the
institutionalized discrimination of African American women. Except for the academic
environment where black scholars have been recognized, only few black women have
entered governmental institutions. Walkers poem These Days suggests her
impatience to see an African American as the president of the US. Moreover, Doves
insistence on individuality reflects the ideological turn in the Black feminist thought.
Concerning the domestic sphere, the social role of a woman in marriage has
changed significantly over last few decades. However, the painful period during
disillusionment that leads to divorce remains. Therefore, Walkers poems reflecting
her depressions during her divorce are real even today. Even though psychological and
physical abuse in marriage is nowadays illegal, still many women are silent about their
mistreatment; as bell hooks says: They are a silent majority (Feminist Theory 1).
Interestingly, concerning her husband, Dove is also silent in her poetry. By focusing on
the mother-daughter relationship, on transition from girlhood to womanhood, on
passing the knowledge from one generation to another, Black feminists emphasize the
importance of the educatory role of a mother; the mother empowers her daughter by
teaching her self-reliance, self-respect and self-confidence. The number of poems by
Walker and Dove dedicated to their mothers and daughters shows that the theme of
motherhood is still a key issue in Black feminist thought.
I have divided my analysis into the private and public spheres of African
American womens oppression. In the introduction I asked whether it is possible to

91

strictly distinguish between these two aspects of ones life. Here, after examining
Walkers and Doves poetry with the emphasis on their perceptions of racism, sexism
and classism as revealed in their interviews, I suggest that it is not possible.
The titles of Walkers and Doves books of poetry, Revolutionary Petunias and
The Yellow House on the Corner, respectively, refer to their approaches to the public
and private dimensions. Nowak argues that in Walkers poetry the blending of the
public and the private sides is symbolized in the two words revolutionary and
petunia (181). In Talking Back, bell hooks observes that the discourse on the private
and public aspect of the literary works has been essential for Black feminists (hooks
105). Moreover, she argues that the emphasis of the feminists on their personal
experience of everyday types of oppression has become a political statement. The
strategy of many African American feminists has been to begin with the self as
starting point, then to move beyond self-reflection to an awareness of collective
reality (hooks 105). The attempt to make the personal political (105) can be found
also in Walkers poetry. By writing about her personal and public life, Nowak asserts
that Walkers experiences and impressions are treated as representative of the
collective history of the American South (Nowak 181).
Rita Dove also mixes the public and private aspects in her poetry. In the
interview with Vendler, she comments on the title of her first book of poetry, The
Yellow House on the Corner, as being a very domestic title, but on the edge of
domesticity. I mean, the house is on the corner and theres a sense of something
beyond thatoutside of that boundary there is something else (485). Dove gives to
her poetry another dimension whose description depends on the angle of the look.
Employing different perspectives is an important aspect of Doves poetry. Her aim is
to capture a particular moment from different angles and, thus, present it as objectively

92

as possible. She is aware of the necessity of this technique when interpreting history.
Doves approach to history and the private/public dichotomy is summed up in the
quotation by Simon Schama that opens On the Bus with Rosa Parks: All history is a
negotiation between familiarity and strangeness (73).
Walker applies a different attitude towards history. She does not consider
history as a matter of the past but as part of herself, explaining: I have experienced a
revolution [] in the South (AW: An Interview 332). She believes in the power of
change, both personal and in society, herself being part of the change in society (AW:
An Interview 332). For instance, her transition from the labor class to the upper class
is a demonstration of the possibility of ones economic empowerment. Besides,
Walker has undergone a personal, emotional change. She confesses that its more fun
being an optimist, Ive discovered. I used to be extremely pessimistic. But unless we
have hope, unless we can grow together and really feel that we can endure, survive,
and overcomewhat is there? We can just sit and wait for the bombs to fall on us and
crawl into little holes that wont save us either (A Conversation 322). Moreover,
Walker finds comfort and hope in the constant resurgence of nature and communicates
this message through her writings. Another aspect of her belief in change can be traced
in the purpose of her writing. As Walker asserts, I think we were given art to heal
ourselves, and by extension, to help other people heal themselves (A Conversation
322). Walkers surname seems to be fateful to hershe refers to her name and its
meaning in her poem Walker:
When I no longer have your heart
--------------------------------------I will go away to a far country
separated from you by the sea

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--on which I cannot walk

and refrain even from sending
letters
describing my pain. (1, 5-10)
No matter how her grieving is deep, she is able to walk away from those who hurt her
and the power to keep walking anywhere. Reflecting her personal change, Walkers
poetry encourages others to believe in the possibility of changing their emotional,
social, political conditions. However, there is one condition which we must keep while
searching for changeto follow humanistic principlesnot to forget to water our
purple petunias.
Doves surname also seems to be fateful to her as it refers to her poetic voice.37
Bearing in mind Doves interest in presenting different perspectives, one asks what her
perspective as a persona of her poems actually is. The answer is as straightforward as
her surnameas a bird Dove takes the perspective from above. This impartial,
objective angle is employed in some of her poems. For example, in Freedom: BirdsEye View, Dove reveals her wish to be objective:
To watch
the tops of 10,000
heads floating by on sticks
and not care if one of them
sees me (though it
would be a kick!). (12-17)

37

Stephen Cushman dedicates his article And the Dove Returned to naming various puns
Dove makes on her name in her poetry. He observes that Doves doves function as so many tropes of
poetic self-consciousness, tropes that lead immediately to important considerations about the nature of
the lyric and its three-thousand-year experiment with the mysteries of the first person (132).

94

Moreover, Doves surname gains another dimension as she uses it as the past form of
the verb divewhen necessary, her persona plunges in to intervene or to get
overwhelmed by her feelings. For instance, she explains that while reading
Shakespeare, free from pressure, I dove in (Selected Poems xx). Doves poetic voice
can be both personal and public. In her interview with Dungy, Dove observes: Ive
had both the opportunity to watch from the sidelines, and to insert myself into the
mainstream and insist upon my presence. One is a passive stance; the other is
something you have to do, actively. [] Its a complicated balance (1036). Indeed,
this balance between subjectivity and objectivity means a change in Black feminist
thinking from emphasizing the personal is political (hooks, Talking Back 105) to a
more objective stance where the poet does not in all cases personify with the persona.
To sum up, as Walker compares the variety of people to different kinds of
flowers, Dove sees this diversity in different kinds of birds. Yet, they both use
metaphors taken from nature. In the introduction of my thesis I quoted Rowell who
observes that contemporary black poets are beginning to build a tradition as hybrid as
never beforeone which disregards geography, race, culture, class, and other
boundaries (The Editors Note ix). I propose that one such colorful hybrid,
encompassing both publicity and domesticity, freedom and passivity, male and female
element, uniqueness and abundance, has just burst into blooma Canary Petunia.

95

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