POETRY IS NOT MADE OF WORDS: A STUDY OF AESTHETICS OF THE BORDERLANDS IN GLORIA ANZALDOA AND MARLENE NOURBESE PHILIP Carmen Caliz-Montoro A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Ph-D. Graduate Department of Comparative Literature University of Toronto (c) Copyright by Carmen Caliz-Montoro 1996. Acquisitions and Acquisiions et Bibliographic Services services bibliographiques The author has granted a non- L'auteur a accorde me Licence non exclusive licence allowing the exclusive permettant a la National Library of Canada to Blaliothkque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distriiute or sell reproduke, pr&er, distriiuer ou copies of this thesis m microform, vendre des copies de cette these sous paper or electronic formats. la fonne de microfichdfilm, de reproduction sur papier ou sur fonnat electronique. The author retains ownership of the L'autem conserve la propriete du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protege cette these. thesis nor substantial extracts fkom it Ni h these ni des erctraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent &re imprimes reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. POETRY IS NOT MADE OF WORDS: A STUDY OF AESTHETICS OF THE BORDERLANDS IN GLORIA ANZALDOA AND MARLENE NOURBESE PHILIP Carmen Caliz-Montoro, Ph.D. University of Toronto, 1996. Supervisor: Prof. Frederick I. Case ABSTRACT This thesis explores an alternative critical approach as a way to overcome the limitations of North American cultural criticism in dealing with literature from the borderlands. Literatures that are in between two or more cultures are not we11 served by one established cultural context. Therefore, the parameters drawn from geopolitics, history, ethnicity, and gender of one culture are insufficient. The aesthetics of the borderlands creates a metaphorical space in which to explore the writings that emerge from the experiences of women who embody multiple cultural backgrounds. The poetry written by Marlene Nourbese Philip and Gloria Anzaldua finds alternative forms to writing for reaching out to difference. Difference and writing are here recontextual ized through the concept of the borderlands, which involves the language of myth and mythic consciousness once it transcends its territorial limitations. Anzaldua and Philip's work is circumscribed by the sociopolitical realities being women, and a lesbian in the case of Anzaldua, being mestiza or Black, and being writers. These three paradigms are juxtaposed in the borderlands of a collective historico-poetic consciousness. Within the framework of nexile," from a mainstream audience, language proceeds by consciously re- membering and defying a white culture and history that attempt to forget by violent erasure. The rearticulation of poetry, then, even transcends the displaced borderlands created between the lines, in the gaps, in the clusters of words that obstruct like rocks, and in the silences of awe and recognition that written forms conceal. I would like to acknowledge the Centre for Comparative Literature for having been incredibly supportive all through the years of my M.A. and Ph.D.. 1 would like to especially thank Prof* Linda Hutcheon, Prof. Ricardo Sternberg both for their friendship and academic support, and Prof. Peter Nesselroth and dear Aphrodite for facilitating the numerous stages of this project. My especial thanks to Prof- Fred I. Case for his insight to see sense through the chaos of some of my thoughts and for helping me see the potential of my ideas when I could still not fully articulate them on paper. I am most indebted to his support and encouragement to fully explore a progressive and creative approach to academic research and writing- I do not forget those in Spain, my parents and my sister Filar Caliz-Montoro, friends in other parts of the world: Susane Becker (Germany), Heta Pyrhonen (Finland) and the English Department at Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona. They have always been close. July 25th 1996 TABLE OF CONTENTS POETRY IS NOT MADE OF WORDS: A STUDY OF AESTHETICS OF BORDERLANDS IN GLORIA ANZALDOA AND M. NOURBESE PHILIP. Abstract AcknowI edsement s INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER 1: CHICANOS GEOPOLITICAL, LITERARY, AND 2 0 HISTORICAL IMPRINTS, CHAPTER 2: REDRAWING CHICANAS LITERARY AND MYTHIC 55 BORDERLANDS CHAPTER 3: MYTHMAKING IN THE BORDERLANDS. CHAPTER 4: DISPLACED FRONTIERS : A CANADIAN GEOGRAPHY OF EX I LE . CHAPTER 5: BORDERLANDS OF PHYSICAL EXILE AND THE EXILE OF BEING. EPILOGUE: POETRY AND THE CURSE OF THE WORD. ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY INTRODUCTION no one listens and cries it still poetry no one sings the note between the silence the voice doesn't founder on the edge of the air it still music there is no one to hear it love does the sea always roar the shell at the ear?' The continuing cultural survival of marginalized ethnic groups has shed new light on our understanding of the history of peoples whose testimonies have been ignored or silenced in the past. Poetry is the medium through which poets, such as Marlene Nourbese Philip and Gloria Anzaldfia, direct a critical rethinking of the role of contemporary women writers who do not fit into a mainstream frameworks of history and literature. Through their poetry, these writers create new perspectives that examine issues of difference and writing from a marginalized position, which I contextual ize and read through the concept of the borderlands and the borderlands aesthetics. The experience of these poets as women of color2 is built Phi lip, M. Nourbese, l'Anonymous," Salmon Courase (Stratford, Ontario: Williams Wallace, 1984)p.2. 2 I am keeping the term women of color to refer to women from different ethnic minority backgrounds as it is used by these women to define themselves. upon a recognition of racial and ethnic roots, the values of which are not shared by a large part of the community in which they write. These values take us back to such different parts of the world as the South West of the U.S., the Caribbean,3 Ultimately, the roots of these poets reach as far back as a mythic collective unconscious, which help to recontextualize texts that do not fall on either side of literary and historical borders. This thesis explores an alternative critical approach as a way to overcome the limitations of North American cultural criticism in dealing with literature from the borderlands. Literatures that are in between two or more cultures are not well served by one established here has been a vast amount of post-colonial feminist critical writing in the last few decades. For instance, Displacements, Angelika Bammer, ed. (Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1994), explores the meanings of "home," "community," and cultural exile; Decolonizinq Feminism, Laura Em Donaldson (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1992), deals more with a rereading of traditional white feminists and confronts the opposition "first" and "third" into a more constructive relationship. Other works, such as Thresholds of Difference. Feminist Critique, Native Women's Writinss, Postcolonial Theory, Julia V. Emberley (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993); Oppositional Aesthetics, Arun Mukherjee (Toronto: TSAR, 1994); Woman, Native, Other, Trinh T. Minh-ha (Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1989), deeply engage in a discourse that contests and juxtaposes issues regarding race, class and gender and the reality of women from different multicultural backgrounds. These critics have contributed immensely to the raising of awareness about the oppression and repression of women and women's discourses of identity. This dissertation moves one step further in the direction of the borderlands and myth. in order to find new parameters in which to discuss issues of identity through the languages of poetry which is not only comprised of words. cultural context. Therefore, the parameters drawn from geopolitics, history, ethnicity, and gender of one culture are insufficient. The aesthetics of the borderlands also create a metaphorical space in which to explore the poetry and critical writings that emerge from the experiences of women who embody multiple cultural backgrounds. The poetry written by Marlene Nourbese Philip and Gloria Anzaldua finds alternative forms to mainstream writing and moves one step further in the direction of the borderlands and myth. This move establishes new parameters to discuss issues of identity through the language of poetry. Poetry and myth are here conducive to a level of discourse in which geopolitical borderlands are transcended, for this discourse is placed or rather displaced outside the rigid structures of manmade linear historical time and geographical space. To identify the voice of difference is to identify not only the voice expressed in words but most importantly the voices erased by the silences and absences that have shaped unacknowledged literary landscapes. Anzaldua's "mujer cacto!' tells us that "La mujer del desierto/ tiene espinas/ las espinas son sus ojos/ si to te le arrimas te araAa./ La mujer del desierto/ tiene largas y afiladas garra&? Anzaldua '"The woman of the desert has thorns/ the thorns are her eyes/ if you get close she will scratch you." Gloria Anzaldaa. Borderlands/La frontera (San Francisco: aunt lute, 1987), p. 180 (my also unearths the silenced female voice of Coatlicue to bring back the long lost gender balance that this Aztec mother of gods embodies. In the case of Nourbese Philip's Lookins for Livinsstone. An Odyssey of Silence (1991), a heroine without a name becomes the timeless landscape in which the object and the subject of search overlap. Firstly, she flounders in the unrecognized silence of oppression inherited from her ancestors. Secondly, she struggles against the repressed silence that dwells in the midst of a patriarchal world cursed by words. Gloria Anzaldca and Marlene Nourbese Philip's work is circumscribed by three political realities: being women and a lesbian in the case of AnzaldGa, being rnestiza or Black, and being writers.