We Heal from Memory: Sexton, Corde, Anzaldua, and the Poetry of Witness

by C. Steele

Overview

Through an examination of the poetry of Anne Sexton, Audre Lorde, and Gloria Anzaldúa, 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. According to Cassie Premo Steele, the poetry of Sexton, Lorde, and Anzaldúa allows us to witness and to heal from such disparate traumatic events.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780312233426
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan US
Publication date:	01/02/2001
Edition description:	2001
Pages:	221
Product dimensions:	5.51(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.03(d)

About the Author

CASSIE PREMO STEELE teaches Comparative Literature at the University of South Carolina.

Table of Contents

'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 Anzaldúa'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: Anzaldúa 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 Anzaldúa's Mestiza Mythology

Editorial Reviews

In the poems of Anne Sexton, Audre Lorde, and Gloria Anzald<'u>a, Steele (comparative literature, U. of South Carolina) detects how western culture carries a history of traumatic violence such as 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. Some of the chapters are published separately. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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