Women's Poetry Studies: A Manual

FAIN: FA-53487-07

Marsha Carol Bryant
University of Florida (Gainesville, FL 32611-0001)

This book takes a cultural approach to twentieth-century women's poetry, reorienting the psychological bent of previous studies. Considering the work of eight American and British poets, my study places it in dialogue with original cultural contexts and contemporary forms of circulation. I also assess the ways the term "women's poetry" has shifted meanings across three decades of reviews, criticism, and anthologies. Arguing that women poets are cultural insiders, I move beyond feminist models that separate women's poetry from the mainstream, the marketplace, and the media. At the same time, I draw from feminist criticism to assess gender issues that shape women poets' participation in the public sphere.

Media Coverage

"P&PC Book Review: Women's Poetry and Popular Culture, by Marsha Bryant" (Review)
Author(s): Mike Chasar
Publication: Poetry & Popular Culture
Date: 1/19/2012
Abstract: Graphics-rich, favorable review in a widely-read blog in the poetry & poetics community. Recently picked up on Silliman's Blog.
URL: http://mikechasar.blogspot.com/2012/01/p-book-review-womens-poetry-and-popular.html

Choice review of Women's Poetry and Popular Culture (Review)
Author(s): M. L. Mock
Publication: Choice
Date: 3/1/2012
Abstract: "Bryant (Univ. of Florida) offers a lively interrogation of 'women's poetry' situated within and outside of constructions of popular, contemporary Western culture. Coalescing the poetry of H.D., Stevie Smith, Sylvia Plath, Gwendolyn Brooks, and Carol Ann Duffy with the complexities of a mainstream market comprising domestic advertising, juvenile literature, film, and tabloid journalism, Bryant's provocative work refutes historical conceptions of women's poetry as oppositional to popular culture. Rather, this refreshing fusion of feminist and cultural studies probes the dynamics of women infusing popular culture with poetry written by 'cultural insiders' to chronicle this delicate and complex interplay of popular culture and women's poetry. Summing Up: Essential. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty."

TSWL Review of Women's Poetry and Popular Culture (Review)
Author(s): Amanda Golden
Publication: Tulsa Studies in Women's Literature
Date: 2/10/2013
Abstract: Tulsa Studies in Women's Lit 30.2, pp. 475-78 (published 2/13, back-dated Fall 2011).
URL: http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/tulsa_studies_in_womens_literature/v030/30.2.golden.html

Review: "Rebranding Women's Poetry" (Review)
Author(s): Laura Vetter
Publication: Twentieth-Century Literature
Date: 11/20/2013
Abstract: 9-page review about the book's field-changing insights about the consequences of using a "second-wave canon" of poetry in a time of third-wave feminism and new cultural approaches to poetry more generally.

WS Review (Review)
Author(s):
Publication: Women's Studies
Date: 10/1/2013
Abstract: Review of Women's Poetry & Popular Culture in the journal Women's Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal.
URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00497878.2013.830539#.Uz3RzvldX_F

Associated Products

Women's Poetry and Popular Culture (Book)
Title: Women's Poetry and Popular Culture
Author: Marsha Bryant
Abstract: This study shows that poems by women do not always subvert the mainstream, the media, and the marketplace. With explorations of Hollywood films, household advertising, children's books, mass magazines, and tabloid journalism as well as the poetry of H.D., Stevie Smith, Gwendolyn Brooks, Sylvia Plath, Ai, and Carol Ann Duffy, Marsha Bryant assesses the counterintuitive innovations that these poets fashion through popular culture.
Year: 2011
Primary URL: http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?pid=313725
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Type: Single author monograph

Women's Poetry and Popular Culture (paperback edition) (Book)
Title: Women's Poetry and Popular Culture (paperback edition)
Author: Marsha Bryant
Abstract: Bringing a fresh approach to the field, this study shows that poems by women do not always subvert the mainstream, the media, and the marketplace. With explorations of Hollywood films, household advertising, children's books, mass magazines, and tabloid journalism as well as the poetry of H.D., Stevie Smith, Gwendolyn Brooks, Sylvia Plath, Ai, and Carol Ann Duffy, Marsha Bryant assesses the counterintuitive innovations that these poets fashion through popular culture. Bridging feminist and cultural studies, this book analyzes the ways in which British and American women poets often operate as cultural insiders, consuming music, movies, and magazines through poems that do not always conform to appropriation or critique.
Year: 2013
Primary URL: http://www.palgrave.com/products/title.aspx?pid=713167
Primary URL Description: http://www.amazon.com/Womens-Popular-Culture-Contemporary-Poetics/dp/1137386215
Type: Single author monograph
Copy sent to NEH?: Yes

Women's Poetry and Popular Culture - Kindle edition (Book)
Title: Women's Poetry and Popular Culture - Kindle edition
Author: Marsha Bryant
Abstract: Challenging the model of the cultural outsider, Marsha Bryant explores the counterintuitive innovations that women poets fashion through popular culture: Hollywood films and household advertising, children's books and crime fiction, mass magazines and tabloid journalism. Such materials even shape the signature style of poets who transgress gender boundaries. The book assesses poets H.D., Stevie Smith, Gwendolyn Brooks, Sylvia Plath, Ai, and Carol Ann Duffy.
Year: 2012
Primary URL: http://www.amazon.com/Womens-Popular-Culture-Contemporary-Poetics-ebook/dp/B009M9B4E6/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=1-2&qid=1320068362
Publisher: Palgrave
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: B009M9B4E6
Copy sent to NEH?: No

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