She Said that all stereotypes have to go

There’s poetry, and then there’s get-off-your-seats-and-let’s-hear-it-for-the-ladies poetry…. There’s poetry, and then there’s get-off-your-seats-and-let’s-hear-it-for-the-ladies poetry.

Last Wednesday evening, the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust held its 3rd annual “She Said” poetry and prose event in the cool atmosphere of Dowe’s on 9th.

Toi Derricotte, Pitt professor of English, hosted the reading, which featured special guest Erica Jong, the author of the 1973 fem-revolution classic, “Fear of Flying.” Joining her were six Pittsburgh poets: Jan Beatty, Veronica Corpuz, Kim El, Kimberly C. Ellis – aka “Dr. Goddess” – Vanessa German and Leslie Anne Mcilroy.

While the stereotype persists that women poets commonly write about plants, trees and birds lapping water at a pond, the poets at the event challenged the nature-writing stereotype – addressing, among other things, gender and race issues.

Performance poet Vanessa German touched the audience with her poetic drama about a black girl pregnant with the child of the man who raped her. And Dr. Goddess’ alter-personality, a Southern Belle, humorously presented a social diet for humanity.

When Erica Jong finally made it onstage as the final reader, she affirmed it a “crock” that women can’t write poems. Her shoulder-length blond hair and pink-rimmed glasses accented her feminine, playful and quirky personality (she collects Venetian glass).

Even though Jong’s novels have sold more than 20 million copies and have been translated in over 35 languages, Jong considers herself a poet first and foremost. “Poets can’t stand a poet who’s a successful novelist,” she joked, “but I was a poet before I ever was a novelist.”

When “Fear of Flying” received national attention, her work stood in largely uncharted territory: a female protagonist (Isadora Wing) on a journey to liberation who doesn’t hold back what she thinks or feels because of social norms.

Jong remembers receiving both letters of praise and letters of attack for her sexually honest novel, and quickly learning not to look outside for validation. While her novels have political and social commentary in them, her poetry is more about her. “You [write poetry] for your inmost self,” she said. “It has a purity like nothing else does.”

Still, the poems Jong read at the event showed why she is considered a feminist icon. Mixing the personal with the personal-political, she read poems about shoes, martians, women writers and her daughter, Molly.

From her poem “Nursing You” Jong read: “You are born a woman/for the sheer glory of it,/little redhead, beautiful screamer./You are no second sex,/but the first of the first;/’ when the moon’s phases/fill out the cycle/of your life,/you will crow/for the joy/of being a woman.”

She’s been touring the United States with her new memoir on writing, “Seducing the Demon.” The title is a play on words and on stereotypes. According to Jong, the demon seduces a woman to write a poem. This is a poke in the face to those who have said women can’t write, because the muse is female and the male writer metaphorically falls in love with her in order that he write.

For all the ebb and flow of the feminist movement in America, last Wednesday’s event was both enthusiastic and inspiring. Women poets are reading all over the country and Erica Jong is still writing. Yet there remains so much left to be said about the female experience.

For instance, Jong mentioned a “wide open field”: literature on the aging woman. She’s working on a new novel that follows “Fear of Flying’s” heroine Isadora as she gets older. She hopes the book will give a voice to women older than 50.

Throughout the evening, Jong urged young members of the audience to endure their lives. “You know, young poets always want to die,” she said. “It’s only when you get older you realize you want to live.”

She mentioned that her literary icons – Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf – all killed themselves and thoroughly “disappointed” her. Now she looks for inspiration from those writers who endured, like the French writer Colette. “A woman should write and live,” Jong said.

From her poem, “Dear Colette,” Jong read: “Dear Colette,/I want to write to you/about being a woman/for that is what you write to me.//I want to tell how your face/enduring after thirty, forty, fifty