Has there ever been a good poem written by a woman?

You haven't read many woman poets, have you?

Do you have a castration fantasy? If I didn't have to get working I would fulfill it for you.

check your best poem thread for my choices, first one is a female poet

i'm also a big fan of canadian poet Margaret Avison

Snow

Nobody stuffs the world in at your eyes.
The optic heart must venture: a jail-break
And re-creation. Sedges and wild rice
Chase rivery pewter. The astonished cinders quake
With rhizomes. All ways through the electric air
Trundle candy-bright discs; they are desolate
Toys if the soul's gates seal, and cannot bear,
Must shudder under, creation's unseen freight.
But soft, there is snow's legend: colour of mourning
Along the yellow Yangtze where the wheel
Spins an indifferent stasis that's death's warning.
Asters of tumbled quietness reveal
Their petals. Suffering this starry blur
The rest may ring your change, sad listener.

We have seen this kind of behavior before.

Someone arrives and tries to get a rise out of long time A2Kers.

I suspect iamsam being a troll or an old timer..

His other posts are really not trollish. I think he's poking at the nest to get our attention. In general, I rather like him and hope he sticks around - after he comes to his senses.

I'm not a troll. They're just fictional, right?

And, thanks for the flattery, I know how highly people who happen to have stumbled across this site a little earlier than others are regarded around here, but I really am a newbie.

I just thought this site was for debate.

I asked this question, not because I agreed with the statement (I intended it to be more a "this house moves that..." debate opener), but because I would like some examples of good female poetry. In Britain they tend to teach Shakespeare, Romantic and Victorian literature while we're at school. And there is precious little stuff by women in there that's much good (Brontes and Austen, let's face it, just wrote nineteenth century equivalents of Mills and Boon). I was hoping you lot could extend my horizons. Show me the good stuff.

But please speak slowly and in short sentences. I am, after all, a humble newb and we, having clicked "sign-up" a little later than you guys, are lesser beings as you all know.

Love you too Greeny

i'm glad you started this thread, when i was composing my three best poem post, i had four i wanted to use, the poem above got cut, but i still get to post it

Kudos on the Auden choice by the way. A truly great poem. Also, a great example of how excellent technical form and rhyme doesn't have to be invasive or cheapen everything with a sing-song feel. He is excellent at that. He slips rhyme and rhythm in so naturally without you even noticing it. That is great poetry.

And what speaks even more highly of you is that you didn't choose tired old, "Stop all the clocks"!!!

The premise of your question -- that women are not great at literature sounds dubious and ill-established to me. Fortunately, it seems like an ideal candidate for a blind test: Let someone give you 50 poems by female authors to read without telling you the author's name. Then let them do the same with 50 poems by male authors. Your task would be to guess the author's gender. (Of course, they would have to be poems you don't know.) Would your guesses predict the actual gender better than a coin flip?

I'd propose that we do this online, but I'm afraid that won't work because you could cheat by searching the web. And I don't know you well enough to trust that you wouldn't cheat to protect your prejudices.

Love this idea. I swear on my mum's life I won't cheat. And I know I c ould tell you which is which. 50 may be a bit much though. In a hundred poems I'm bound to know one or two which will give the game away. Maybe ten of each? Let's do it. You could get them off poemhunter.com. There is famous and non famous stuff on there.

Try this one, man or woman?

Thou two-faced year, Mother of Change and Fate,
Didst weep when Spain cast forth with flaming sword,
The children of the prophets of the Lord,
Prince, priest, and people, spurned by zealot hate.
Hounded from sea to sea, from state to state,
The West refused them, and the East abhorred.
No anchorage the known world could afford,
Close-locked was every port, barred every gate.
Then smiling, thou unveil'dst, O two-faced year,
A virgin world where doors of sunset part,
Saying, "Ho, all who weary, enter here!
There falls each ancient barrier that the art
Of race or creed or rank devised, to rear
Grim bulwarked hatred between heart and heart!"

In my opinion, all poetry should be written by women.

Men should focus on important things like building businesses, creating technology and running the country.

Ok... ever so scared to be wrong now... but that's why this is a great test and what a2k's good for.

I'm going to go with... MALE author. And I'm also going to say 17thC.

Well, that's only an opinion.

I believe women should be given the freedom to do whatever they are able to undertake..

Wrong on both counts:

Emma Lazarus, 19th.

Want more?

DAMMIT!!! Well, in my defense, she's clearly imitating Milton, Congreve, et al. and late 17thC styles. She's pretending to be a man. But still, I'm just clutching at straws. You have proved I'm an idiot!

But yes, thanks for being courteous in victory and offering me anothe rgo which I will take! BEST OF THREE!

Here it is:

A stranger came to the door at eve,
And he spoke the bridegroom fair.
He bore a green-white stick in his hand,
And, for all burden, care.
He asked with the eyes more than the lips
For a shelter for the night,
And he turned and looked at the road afar
Without a window light.

(Remember your mum's life)..

Female...

... 1930s

Go on... shoot me down.