History-March 10

"The Poem as Mask," I believe, uses the metaphor of masks to look at the evolution of womanhood throughout history. As the lines proceed, the poet's theory is developed, revealing the absence of God and the changing face of femininity. Poetry allows the female poet to articulate the abstract and create powerful, historic theory. Women in the 1960's women's movement used poetry in a similar manner. Poetry became the political, when groups of women would come together to discuss gender, race, sexuality and more. The best medium to expose an all-inclusive experience and to attempt to create a universal, political articulation for their platform. This reminds me of the poem I incorporated in my research paper about sexuality in the 1960's titled, "A Rose with No Name." A prostitute is the central figure in this poem whose morality is compared to the evilness of the Vietnam War. The use of a prostitute as the main subject creates a platform in which the freedom of sexuality as well as the politics of war are discussed. This relates well to the topic of history in relation to poetry, as the poem, while criticizing women's accepted roles in society by analyzing the morality of a prostitute also serves to theorize about the historical struggles of the U.S. in the war effort.

Local vs global
biases of historiography
generation vs geneology
story vs history