Everywoman Her Own Theology: On the Poetry of Alicia Suskin Ostriker

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University of Michigan Press, Sep 17, 2018 - Literary Criticism - 212 pages
Alicia Ostriker’s artistic and intellectual productions as a poet, critic, and essayist over the past 50 years are protean and have been profoundly influential to generations of readers, writers, and critics. In all her writings, both the feminist and the human engage fiercely with the material and metaphysical world. Ostriker is a poet concerned with questions of social justice, equality, religion, and how to live in a world marked by both beauty and tragedy.

Everywoman Her Own Theology: On the Poetry of Alicia Suskin Ostriker engages Ostriker’s poetry from throughout her career, including her first volume Songs, her award-winning collection The Imaginary Lover, and her more recent work in the collections No Heaven, the volcano sequence, The Old Woman, the Tulip, and the Dog, and Waiting for the Light. Like her literary criticism and essays, Ostriker’s poetry explores themes of feminism, Jewish life, family, and social justice.

With insightful essays—some newly written for this collection—poets and literary critics including Toi Derricotte, Daisy Fried, Cynthia Hogue, Tony Hoagland, and Eleanor Wilner illuminate and open new pathways for critical engagement with Alicia Ostriker’s lifetime of poetic work.
 

Contents

Alicia Ostriker Thumbtacking Her Theses to the Bulletin Board Martha Nell Smith
1
Joan Larkin Interviews Alicia Ostriker Joan Larkin
8
The Imaginary Lover Green Age and Other Points of Fusion with William Blake Jenny Factor
23
Alicia Ostrikers Poetry and Criticism Diana Hume George
40
Tectonic Shifts on The Crack in Everything Marilyn Hacker
54
Well Burn My Bush Alicia Ostriker in Dialogue with Biblical Narrative Marion Helfer Wajngot
60
Maternal Theology in the volcano sequence Jill Hammer
71
the volcano sequence as Fragmentary Postmodern and Yes Feminist Text Richard Tayson
89
Judy Grahn Alicia Ostriker and the Shock of Pleasure Julie R Enszer
136
Mixed Dancing Eric Selinger
150
The Bible as an Open Book Marilyn Krysl
166
The Transformation of Grief in Elegy Before the War Wesley McNair
170
Its Okay to Play and Joy Is Political Toi Derricotte
175
Waiting for the Light Afaa Michael Weaver
179
Awakening with Alicia Ostriker Eleanor Wilner
182
A Chronological Bibliography of Her Books
191

The Example of Alicia Ostriker Cynthia Hogue
106
Alicia Ostrikers Men Daisy Fried
117
A Few Poems by Alicia Ostriker Jacqueline Osherow
122
The Poems of Alicia Ostriker Tony Hoagland
128
Contributors
193
Index
197
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About the author (2018)

Martha Nell Smith is Professor of English and Distinguished Scholar-Teacher at the University of Maryland. Coordinator and Executive Editor of the Dickinson Electronic Archives, she serves on the Advisory Board of Harvard University Press’s Emily Dickinson Archive, and is a founding member and president of the Emily Dickinson International Society. Her publications include Emily Dickinson, A User’s Guide and Open Me Carefully: Emily Dickinson’s Intimate Letters to Susan Dickinson.

Julie R. Enszer teaches at the University of Mississippi and is the author of four poetry collections, Avowed, Lilith’s Demons, Sisterhood, and Handmade Love. Her most recent edited volume, The Complete Works of Pat Parker, won a Lambda Literary Award. She edits and publishes Sinister Wisdom, a multicultural lesbian literary and art journal.

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