Little Light lets it shine.

1. 
   Rob G 2007 01 15 at 3:34:13 pm

   Chris, I had a look at what I assume was the pile-on you referred to in an earlier post. This was a nice purgative. Little Light shines brightly.

2. 
   Ancrene Wiseass 2007 01 15 at 11:44:39 pm

   Thanks for posting this link. So amazing.

3. 
   little light 2007 01 16 at 12:03:14 pm

   Thanks for the kind words, Chris.  I hope it pays back some of what I’ve gotten out of your writing after all this time.

4. 
   Pony 2007 01 17 at 10:21:05 pm

   I can understand some people not knowing where this came from Chris. But you?

   It’s plaigarism.

5. 
   little light 2007 01 17 at 10:26:53 pm

   Pony?  I don’t want to make a mess here at Chris’, but I think it’s telling that you’re too much of a coward to say these things where you’re sure I can see them.
   Your accusation is ridiculously groundless, and, moreover, it’s sad.

   Bring it.

6. 
   Chris Clarke 2007 01 18 at 12:58:36 am

   In related news, Claude Lelouch has sued Jan de Bont alleging that de Bont’s movie “Speed” plagiarizes Lelouch’s previous work.

   “Look at it,” Lelouch said. “It’s got a man, and a woman, and they spend most of the movie driving? I totally invented that.”

   When asked about the progress of a similar suit against Lelouch, in which God alleges that that director’s 1966 film “Un homme et une femme” substantially infringed on His work in Genesis 2:25, Lelouch refused comment.

7. 
   Rob G 2007 01 18 at 6:41:25 am

   Pony, something far, far worse than plagiarism (which informed people say is not the case here, but I’ll be reading Morgan’s poem ASAP - thanks) is trying to undermine someone’s emotional truth.

   Daffy Duck said it better than I ever could.

8. 
   bdaggerlee 2007 01 18 at 9:30:13 pm

   Pony!  Are you out there?  Come talk to me!

   First of all, wild angry Pony, little galled warhorse, tell me what bread littlelight has taken out of your mouth?  And what bruises has littlelight put on you or yours?

   Secondly, just from my little poetry library I can think of and find three monster poems, by women, all chronologically from before Robin Morgan’s poem.  Louise Bogan has a fine Medusa poem from 1921, and Sylvia Plath has a Medusa poem from the early 1960’s.  In Adrienne Rich’s poem, “Planetarium,â€? 1968, a 19th Century female astronomer sees in the sky, “A woman in the shape of a monster/ a monster in the shape of a woman / the skies are full of them.â€? Margaret Atwood references the Gorgon in her first book, Double Persephone, in 1961, I think.  I’ve read several essays—notably one by Rachel DuPlessis, positing the Medusa as the raped woman.  I’ve read many essays, poems, and novels, by men and women, portraying the lesbian as monster,.

   Robin Morgan—whose work I like and admire—had herself a fine/fancy/classic/expensive education up at Columbia, and I can guarantee that her English survey courses covered thousands of years of male writers representing women as monster, whore, soul-less, nature, witch, whore, abomination, dirt.  Additionally, Kate Millet, Susan Brownmiller, and Andrea Dworkin, among others, were publishing, in the 1960’s and early 1970’s their feminist surveys of literature, detailing and reviewing the projections, misrepresentations, slurs, and lies.  Anne Sexton was also reclaiming witch and monster imagery.

   That the imagery was and is everywhere could be testified to by scholars (better than me) of religion, history, anthropology and literature; that the imagery was and is everywhere does not take away from the strength, originality and particularity of Morgan’s poem. Nor does this take anything away from littlelight’s moving declaration.

   littlelight is standing in a line of women thousands of years long, most unknown, unnamed, forgotten, who have said, “Very well then, I am what you say, I am Monster, I am damaged, I am ruined, I am raped and battered, I am a slut and a whore, I am a witch, I am a dyke.â€?  There’s many more women out there right now, never having read the Morgan poem, but reaching the same conclusion:  I am and will be a monster.

   Yrs, B. Dagger Lee

9. 
   belledame222 2007 01 20 at 3:40:39 am

   You’ve a kind and generous soul, bdaggerlee.