"…i began thinking about the work of two twentieth-century women poets: sylvia plath and diane wakoski. it strikes me that in the work of both Man appears as, if not a dream, a fascination and a terror: and that source of the fascination and the terror is, simply, Man’s power to—to dominate, tyrannize, choose, or reject the woman. the charisma of Man seems to come purely from his power over her and his control of the world by force, not from anything fertile or live-giving in him. and in the work of both of these poets, it is finally the woman’s sense of herself—embattled, possessed—that gives the poetry its dynamic charge, its rhythms of struggle, need, will, and female energy. until recently this female anger and this furious awareness of the Man’s power over her were not available materials to the female poet…"

adrienne rich, “when we dead awaken”