Is not easy to walk with so much power in your flesh
Uses of the erotic in Tanya Shirley's poetry
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4986772 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Francina Cousins (0009-0005-8891-6287, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 138 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 41-59 |
| Publication date | 2024-11-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Feminist Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0141-7789 • E-ISSN: 1466-4380 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/01417789241289357 |
| OpenAlex | W4405526906 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 9 |
This article analyses the representation of the sexual bodies and erotic desire of Jamaican black women in selected poems by Tanya Shirley. It draws on postcolonial feminist theories and Caribbean and diasporic cultural studies, especially Audre Lorde's theory of the erotic as power, as it analyses idiosyncratic sources and strategies of women's erotic empowerment. In her poetry, Shirley is careful to highlight the volatility of eroticism as a force that can both empower and imperil women. She also erotically empowers frequently neglected attributes of female subjectivity such as the fat female body and the stereotypically nurturing characteristic of women. Moreover, Shirley pays homage to Jamaican working-class women who cunningly deploy their erotic power in response to socioeconomic and gender oppression in the problematic and nuanced contexts of Caribbean gender politics. Through these rhetorical and thematic strategies, Shirley illustrates various uses of the erotic as a template for Caribbean women's poetics. This model rejects both pathologised and respectable renditions of Caribbean black women's sexuality as evidenced in historical discourse and earlier works by women writers, insisting, instead, on an assertive and celebratory female eroticism
Art · Biology · Feminism · Fishery · Flesh · Human sexuality · Literature · Poetry · Power (physics) · Sociology · Anthropology · Caribbean history, culture, and politics · Cultural Studies · Gender Studies · Latin American and Latino Studies · Postcolonial and Cultural Literary Studies
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |