Abstract EN:

By reading three poets simultaneously (adrienne rich, erica jong, may swenson) we aim to further a dialogue between autonomous and distinct poetic "paroles". The metamorphic shapes of the written body tell us less about the reality of the female body than about the evanescent quality of the real (lacan). Intertextuality is a means to recapture snatches of texts or visual representations common to all, in order to give them renewed poetic meaning. In that imaginary quest the mirror is a heuristic implement and not a mere ornament. Does writing amidst the turmoil of the sixties in america mean that feminism and poetic writing are linked? a. Rich seems to answer yes, but e. Jong is more ambivalent and m. Swenson more wary about such equations. However, the poem is able to summon forgotten voices so as to recompose a feminine palimpsest. America seems to be the ideal place for a utopian mode of writing for the question of origins is ever present. The socially ascribed roles influence the poet's apprehension of everyday language that he she works with. For rich the symbolic law of the father puts its infamous imprint on the language, whereas jong finds the masculine feminine dichotomy challenging. Only m. Swenson is willing to adamantly maintain a purely poetic vacillation away from the gender-determined polarities. The study of rhythm and of the sea entails a parallel between writing and the freudian fort-da. The concept of poetic voice helps situate poetic writing in the realm of the feminine, or of the lacanian real, difficult to delimit and define. The name is the poet's signature and it is also the trace of the irreducible division of the subject of writing. The feminine aspect of writing lies in the insistent emphasis on this internal division of the subject of utterance : it is therefore less easy to discover it in the solid substance of discourse than in the shreds and the sutures of an ever-changing poetic fabric.