We Heal From Memory Sexton, Lorde, Anzaldúa, and the Poetry of Witness

by Premo Steele, Cassie

• ISBN13: 9780312233426
• ISBN10: 0312233426
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-11-04
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

Through an examination of the poetry of Anne Sexton, Audre Lorde, and Gloria Anzalduacute;a, 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 Anzalduacute;a allows us to witness and to heal from such disparate traumatic events.

Author Biography

Cassie Premo Steele teaches Comparative Literature at the University of South Carolina.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction We Heal From Memory: Sexton, Lorde, Anzaldua and The Poety of Witness	1	(14)
PART 1
``My night mind saw such strange happenings'': Anne Sexton and Childhood Sexual Trauma	15	(12)
``We are sisters and our survival is mutual'': Audre Lorde and the Connections between Individual and Collective Trauma	27	(14)
``Una Herida Abierta'': The Border as Wound in Gloria Anzaldua's Borderlands/La Frontera	41	(18)
PART II
``This Kind of Hope'': Anne Sexton and the Language of Survival	59	(14)
``My eyes are always hungry and remembering'': Audre Lorde and the Poetry of Witness	73	(8)
Healing from Awakened Dreams: Anzaldua as Individual and Collective Witness	81	(14)
PART III
``I wish to enter her like a dream'': Anne Sexton and the Prophecy of Healing	95	(20)
Drawing Strength from Our Mothers: Tapping the Roots of Black Women's History	115	(14)
Grinding the Bones to Create Anew: Gloria Anzaldua's Mestiza Mythology	129	(20)
Conclusion The Emperor Wears No Clothes	149	(6)
Notes	155	(36)
Bibliography Anne Sexton	191	(26)
Audre Lorde	198	(6)
Gloria Anzaldua	204	(7)
Trauma Studies	211	(6)
Index	217