The Grand Permission: New Writings on Poetics and Motherhood

Patricia Dienstfrey, Brenda Hillman

Wesleyan University Press, May 8, 2003 - Family & Relationships - 278 pages

How writing and motherhood influence one another.

The Grand Permission is a book of deeply enriching and articulate meditations on motherhood and the composition of poetry by practicing poets. The 32 contributors write with originality and commitment about the startling, intense and dynamic connections between motherhood and creative achievement—connections that shed new light on the nature of language and genre, the practical life of mothering and the writing vocation. The book combines intimacy of tone and discussion of serious personal issues in new essays written in varied and innovative forms. This wonderful book is an ideal gift for mothers of all ages and creative pursuits, and especially valuable for writers concerned about how life decisions impact artistic choices.

CONTRIBUTORS: Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge, Jill Bialosky, Eavan Boland, Stephanie Brown, Norma Cole, Gillian Conoley, Toi Derricotte, Barbara Einzig, Carolyn Forché, Kathleen Fraser, Susan Gervirtz, Dale Going, Susan Griffin, Mimiko Hahn, Carla Harryman, Fanny Howe, Erica Hunt, Claudia Keelan, Maxine Kumin, Laura Moriarty, Carol Muske, Alice Notley, Alicia Ostriker, Maureen Owen, Frances Phillips, Pam Rehm, Elizabeth Robinson, Camille Roy, Mary Margaret Soan, C.D. Wright.

Contents

• When as a Girl on the Plains of Minnesota: 11
• Not a Perfect Mother: 25
• My Motherhood: 33
• Writing Natural Birth: 47
• Emergence: 55
• The Other Sylvia Plath: 67
• The Zuihitsu: 75
• And the Motherhood of Poetics: 83
• The Writing Being: 103
• Radiance in the Story Lattice: 111
• Part Three: 135
• To book as in to foal To son: 145
• Notes on Listen: 155
• On Motherhood and Poetry: 165
• A Poetics of Motherhood: 171
• Heart Murmur: 187
• EightyFive Notes: 211
• Resuscitations: 217
• Poetma: 225
• The Pinocchian Ideal: 263
• Index: 269

About the author

PATRICIA DIENSTFREY's most recent book of prose-poetry, The Woman Without Experiences (1995), was the winner of the America Award for Fiction. She is a co-founder of Kelsey Street Press. Brenda Hillman is the author of 11 books of poetry from Wesleyan University Press. She has co-edited numerous books, including At Your Feet by Brazilian poet Ana Cristina Cesar. A former Chancellor at the Academy of American Poets and a recent recipient of the Morton Dauwen Zabel Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters for innovation in literature, she is Professor Emerita at Saint Mary’s College of California and lives in the Bay Area with her husband Robert Hass.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Grand Permission: New Writings on Poetics and Motherhood
• Editors: Patricia Dienstfrey, Brenda Hillman
• Publisher: Wesleyan University Press, 2003
• ISBN: 0819566446, 9780819566447
• Length: 278 pages
• Subjects: Family & Relationships / General; Family & Relationships / Parenting / General; Family & Relationships / Parenting / Motherhood; Literary Collections / Essays; Literary Criticism / Poetry; Social Science / Women's Studies