Monday, March 8, 2021

On International Women's Day - reflecting on the recovery of women's voices

Not only has the historical record often underestimated the contribution of women to society, but art can also be guilty of this travesty, consciously or unconsciously. The title poem of my debut poetry collection, "No Vague Utopia", is a short monologue in the voice of Eva Gore-Booth who is politely, but adroitly, addressing W.B. Yeats beyond the grave (since he was so taken with communication from the spirit world!). Eva (1870-1926) was a poet, dramatist, suffragist, committed social worker and labour activist who was especially vocal about the conditions for women workers in the cotton factories in England.
Yet, in his poem "In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markievicz" Yeats writes about Eva: "I know not what the younger dreams - / Some vague Utopia...". His wistful and understandably human nostalgia for by-gone days still glosses over Eva's achievement as she is memorialised as a vague dreamer, now wizened and gaunt.
Should Con and Eva have frozen in time by the great windows of Lissadell, eternally youthful and gazelle-like in their silk kimonos just to placate Yeats's aesthetic reverie? My poem is a gentle riposte to Yeats as Eva seeks to make the point that her life and vision did not amount to 'some vague utopia.' No Vague Utopia was published by Ainnir Publishing in 2003 and I hope you enjoy this poem. Happy International Women's Day and here's to the ongoing recovery of all those important female voices muted by history, patriarchy, art....!

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