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UMI A Bell & Howell Information Compaiy 300 North Zed) Road, Ann Arbor MI 48106-1346 USA 313/761-4700 800/521-0600 "POETRY SHOULD RIDE THE BUS": AMERICAN WOMEN WORKING-CLASS POETS AND THE RHETORICS OF COMMUNITY DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of the Ohio State University By Karen Kovacik, BA., MA. ***** The Ohio State University 1997 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor Jeredith Merrin, Adviser Professor Andrea Lunsford Professor David Citino Adviser department of English UMI Number: 9731655 UMI Microform 9731655 Copyright 1997, by UMI Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. UMI 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, MI 48103 Copyright by Karen Kovacik 1997 ABSTRACT Critics in working-class studies have argued that the defining characteristic of working-class literature is its “communal” aesthetic. My dissertation supports this hypothesis by demonstrating how “communities” are enacted rhetorically in a diverse body of poetry by twenty-one American women poets of working-class backgrounds. Drawing on the work of such writers as Gloria Anzaldua, Loraa Dee Cervantes, Tess Gallagher, Linda McCarriston, Doriarme Laux and Thylias Moss, I examine recurring poetic structures that inform a class-based solidarity. Individual chapters focus on key cultural sites: home and neighborhood; the laboring body; the “pink-collar” workplaces of office and restaurant; the cross-class environments of schools and universities; and the Triangle fire of 1911—a landmark event in women’s and labor history. Embracing what critic Janet Zandy has termed an “aesthetics of relationality,” these poets offer class-conscious responses to major schools of American poetry, such as L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poetry or the Black Arts movement, and adapt conventions like the dramatic monologue or blazon to foreground particulars of classism or racism. My method is to situate readings of poems in the contexts of African-American, Latino/a, working-class and women’s history. Yet my dissertation also builds on recent ethnographic work stressing the importance of involving research subjects in the meaning- making process. At my suggestion, a number of poets in my sample have contributed autobiographical notes on class, race, poetic practice, and the material conditions that have hindered or fostered their writing. The poets, bora between 1940 and 1960, all came from families supported by blue-collar, pink-coUar, or low-level service-sector work, and many were the first in their families to attend college. They’ve worked jobs as donut makers, gas station attendants, waitresses, and secretaries, yet currently 18 out of 21 hold advanced degrees and are affiliated with academia. Given their individual achievements, these poets could be expected to celebrate upward mobility in their work; however, they refuse to assimilate quietly into the middle class. Rather, they address ongoing struggles between woricers and management in the putatively “classless,” post-industrial era and challenge cherished ideologies of the “melting pot,” individualism, and equality of opportunity. in To my parents and in memory of my grandparents IV ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My dissertation, a study of collectivist aesthetics in the poetry of working-class women poets, has taught me again and again that the work of a single author owes a great debt to the communities she inhabits. In this space, I would like to acknowledge all who have contributed the support—intellectual, material, emotional, and spiritual—that has sustained me at every stage of this project. I would like to thank Patricia Dobler, Chris Llewellyn, and Stephanie Strickland, whose panel on “Women and the Poetry of Work” at the 1995 Associated Writing Programs conference in Pittsburgh initially inspired this study. I am also indebted to Stephanie Strickland for generously providing me with a copy of her bibliography on women, poetry, and work. I’m grateful to Janet Zandy, whose groundbreaking scholarly work on working- class women’s literature and whose steadfast commitments to working-class people have provided me with models f^r my own cnMcism. R”th Forman graciously consented to let me borrow the title of her poem “Poetry Should Ride the Bus”; I use it here with her permission. I would like to thank my adviser, Jeredith Merrin, for her many kindnesses: her willingness to believe in me and my work when I did not; her editorial scrupulosity; and her unfailing advocacy on my behalf. I would also like to thank Andrea Lunsford for countless valuable bibliographic leads, for help with grant applications, and for inspiring me with her enthusiasm and warmth. My third committee member, David Citino, also provided me with much encouragement, including a necessary pep talk when I was just beginning to write and delicious, easy recipes for frittatas and risottos! I would also like to thank Professor Leila Rupp of the Ohio State Department of History and Professor Linda Brodkey of the Department of Literatures at the University of Califomia-San Diego, who wrote letters on my behalf for the Presidential Fellowship competition. I am very grateful to the Ohio State University Graduate School, which awarded me that much appreciated year off from teaching. For helping me to overcome many moments of despair and self-doubt and for sharing in my moments of attainment, I am grateful to my ABD group, including Allison, Amitha, André, Andrea, Bert, Catita, Cathy, Chuck, Hans, Jim, Joan, Josh, Kayla, Lee, Linda, Louise, Phil H., Phil T., and Tony. For sustaining conversations, often over cups of decaf coffee or tea, while sprawled on their couches or seated at their (or my) kitchen tables, I would like to thank Ellen Damsky, Gosia Gabrys, Ceci Gray, Marge Kielkopf, Mary Malloy, Eleni Mavromatidou, and Ellen Seusy. For offering me examples of how to work for political change both inside and out of the academy. I’m indebted to Yoshie Furuhashi, Ken Petri, and all of my fellow members of GESO-OSU. Marilyn Annucci, Susan Grimm Dumbrys, and Katherine Sullivan also offered valuable insights on class, language, and poetry, as well as the examples of their own fine creative work. Thanks, too, to members and staff of the St. Thomas More Newman Center, for spiritual support and guidance. For providing me with stories from their lives and for offering to read individual chapters, I am very grateful to the women poets of working-class backgrounds whose poetry is the subject of this study. I’m especially indebted to Gloria Anzaldua, Jan Beatty, Nancy Vieira Couto, Patricia Dobler, Mary Fell, Tess Gallagher, Dorianne Laux, Linda McCarriston, Donna Masini, Patricia Smith, Michelle Tokarczyk, and Janet Zandy. VI I would like to thank my parents, Pete and Fran Kovacik, for providing a literacy- rich environment when I was growing up and for encouraging me to seek an education beyond high school, even though the effects of that education sometimes made me seem a stranger. My sister, Linda Kovacik, offered much encouragement throughout the lengthy writing process. Thanks, too, for the many words of comfort and inspiration from the California Swanks— Ursula and Karen. And for living up to his feminist ideals, for his homemade tostadas, moussaka, and gado-gado, for backrubs with oil of patchouli, for helpful bibliographic references and invigorating exchanges of ideas, and for his wit and emotional honesty, I am grateful to my partner, Eric Swank. Vll VTTA July 21, 1959 ..................................................Bora - East Chicago, Indiana 1981................................................................... B.A., Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 1990................................................................. M.A., Cleveland State University, Cleveland, Ohio 1990- 1..............................................................Instructor, Lakeland Community College, Mentor, Ohio 1991- 2............................................................. Poet-in-Residence, University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wisconsin 1992- 3...........................................................