Introduction

Abstract

The poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay, Elizabeth Bishop, Marilyn Chin, and Marilyn Hacker afford a crucial look at what it means to possess a body—particularly a female body. Creative and intellectual expressions do not occur separate from the body, and as Elizabeth Grosz states, “The writer would be unable to type, the musician unable to perform, without word processor or musical instrument becoming part of the body image” (Volatile Bodies 80). The body and body image become integral parts of creative acts, and this obvious observation carries with it important implications. As I discuss more fully in Chapter 1, linking embodiment and cultural production often devalues the product of that production and marginalizes the artist, especially in the case of women, men of color, and gays and lesbians. Millay, Bishop, Chin, and Hacker all seem to recognize this danger, and yet, each writes a poetics of the body. This poetics suggests the importance of the body in the creative process, and the poetic bodies that circulate in their work, to varying degrees, sustain and hinder creativity, uphold and humble intellectuality, bolster and betray masculinity, celebrate and disavow femininity, define and redefine sexuality, and reinforce and challenge disciplining regimes of gender. As Millay, Bishop, Chin, and Hacker depict the body in their poems, they offer one that defies the traditional rigid categorization of either immanent or transcendent; instead, the body often becomes the site where immanence and transcendence occur simultaneously, conditionally, and tangentially.