In a particularly memorable poem, “Hat Trick,” Meitner, who lives in Blacksburg, Virginia, writes of purchasing Girl Scout cookies in “my pajamas from the neighbor-girl / Isabelle, who rang the doorbell holding / bright boxes of Peanut Butter Patties / and Thin Mints,” a transaction that brings to mind “my mother’s constant refrain / that Girl Scouts uniform reminded / her of Hitler Youth.” Her most recent collection reflects on some of the most pressing issues of our day, including gun violence, racism, and antisemitism in the United States. If Ostriker speaks with the authority of a prophet, Erika Meitner writes in the vernacular, drawing heavily from personal experience. Actually, no / I don’t want to resemble that Schmutzkopf / So I am thumbtacking these ninety-five / Theses to the bulletin board in my kitchen.” A poetic takedown of the patriarchy, “Everywoman Her Own Theology” reimagines theology from a woman’s perspective: “I am nailing them up to the cathedral door / Like Martin Luther. One of my favorite Ostriker poems is “Everywoman Her Own Theology,” which first appeared in her 1986 collection The Imaginary Lover and has since lent its title to a work of critical essays and poetic reflections responding to Ostriker’s life’s work. 1937) has inspired generations of poets and scholars working at the intersection of activism, the academy, and the arts. Wed, at least once more, indulgence to the truth.A FORMIDABLE FORCE in the world of poetry, feminist scholarship, and political activism, Alicia Ostriker (b. One needs to raise an eyebrow, show a thigh, This city of perpetual rains but, my love, But, to whet your curiosity, here’s the last part of the poem ‘Madame Noire Tours the City at Night’: It’s impossible to give a flavour of the book by quoting a few lines, because each character’s poems are completely different in style and mood and content. Is Madame Noire a parody of Mrs Thatcher? The play refers to the French Revolution, biblical passages, classical art and literature-is it an imagined war between religion and reality? I’ve read it many times, and I’m still no wiser. I would agree with Don Paterson about political articulation. The cast of the play include Madame Noire, H (who I took to be a Christ-like figure), The Uninformer (a poet) and R (with strong references to Casablanca’s Rick). There is humour in the writing it’s quick witted and clever, and I have the feeling that Armstrong had a good deal of fun writing it. Perhaps it’s me, but I found myself moving through the poems like I used to move through those pea-souper London fogs of the 1950s: that heady excitement of walking through a deceptively familiar landscape, combined with being totally and utterly lost. And head scratching was something I did a lot of as I read and re-read the verse play that is Madame Noire. The back has two quotes about Armstrong’s previous collections, one of which I think I understand “radiant and politically articulate meditations” (Don Paterson) but the other is a Peter Porter soundbite that leaves me scratching my head: “the language is made into a real sculpture: this truly is authority at its least questionable”. His latest offering: Madame Noire (subtitled and other figures at the edge of an imagined war ) is another high quality production from John Lucas’s excellent Shoestring Press- beautifully bound, with an elegant mottled grey cover. Peter Armstrong is a co-editor of Other Poetry, and has collections published by Enitharmon and Picador and poems in Poetry Review.
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