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Book Cover
Book
Author Steele, Cassie Premo, 1967-

Title We heal from memory : Sexton, Lorde, Anzaldúa, and the poetry of witness / Cassie Premo Steele
Edition First edition
Published Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire ; New York : Palgrave, 2000

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Location Call no. Vol. Availability
 MELB  811.099287 A8141/W  AVAILABLE
Description x, 221 pages ; 22 cm
Contents Machine derived contents note: Table of contents for We heal from memory : Sexton, Lorde, Anzaldúa, and the poetry of witness / Cassie Premo Steele. -- Bibliographic record and links to related information available from the Library of Congress catalog -- Information from electronic data provided by the publisher. May be incomplete or contain other coding. -- ?My night mind saw such strange happenings?: Anne Sexton and Childhood Sexual Trauma -- ?We are sisters and our survival is mutual?: Audre Lorde and the Connections between Individual and Collective Trauma -- ?Una Herida Abierta?: The Border as Wound in Gloria Anzalda͠'s Borderlands/La Frontera -- ?This Kind of Hope?: Anne Sexton and the Language of Survival -- ?My eyes are always hungry and remembering?: Audre Lorde and the Poetry of Witness -- Healing from Awakened Dreams: Anzalda͠ as Individual and Collective Witness -- ?I wish to enter her like a dream?: Anne Sexton and the Prophecy of Healing -- Drawing Strength from Our Mothers: Tapping the Roots of Black Women?s History -- Grinding the Bones to Create Anew: Gloria Anzalda͠'s Mestiza Mythology -- Library of Congress subject headings for this publication: American poetry Women authors History and criticism, Women and literature United States History 20th century, American poetry 20th century History and criticism, Anzaldúa, Gloria Criticism and interpretation, Lorde, Audre Criticism and interpretation, Sexton, Anne, 1928-1974 Criticism and interpretation, Victims of crimes in literature, Witnesses in literature, Violence in literature, Victims in literature, Healing in literature, Memory in literature, Women in literature
Summary "Through an examination of the poetry of Anne Sexton, Audre Lorde, and Gloria Anzaldus, We Heal From Memory paints a vivid picture of how our culture carries a history of traumatic violence - child sexual abuse, the ownership and enforcement of women's sexuality under slavery, the transmission of violence through generations, and the destruction of non-white cultures and their histories through colonization. As Cassie Premo Steele demonstrates, the poetry of Sexton, Lorde, and Anzaldua allows us to witness and to heal from such disparate traumatic events because the "evidence" is not to be found in the events themselves but in the survivors' painful reaction to having survived."
"It is not the event itself that determines whether it is traumatic; it is the way that the survivor survives such violence by not experiencing it in the normal way we experience and remember. This is why poetry allows survivors to witness others' survival: poetry, like trauma, takes images, feelings, rhythms, sounds, and the physical sensations of the body as evidence. It is in attending to this "evidence" that we may realize that not only women, but all of us - men, women, and children - are hurt by the horror of violence, and such witnessing leads to the realization that we do not have to continue to be either the victims or the perpetrators of such violence if we heal from memory."--BOOK JACKET
Notes Includes index
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages [191]-215) and index
Subject Anzaldúa, Gloria -- Criticism and interpretation.
Lorde, Audre -- Criticism and interpretation.
Sexton, Anne -- Criticism and interpretation.
Sexton, Anne, 1928-1974 -- Criticism and interpretation.
American poetry -- Women authors -- History and criticism.
American poetry -- 20th century -- History and criticism.
Healing in literature.
Memory in literature.
Victims of crimes in literature.
Violence in literature.
Witnesses in literature.
Victims in literature.
Women and literature -- United States -- History -- 20th century.
Women in literature.
LC no. 00040488
ISBN 0312233426 (hardback)