Where We Stand: Women Poets on Literary Tradition

“The essays in Where We Stand are utterly absorbing in their clarity, vitality, and variety, reminding us—if we need reminding—of the special vigor that marks the female literary tradition. If you are a woman (whatever you do), if you are a poet (whatever your sex), but especially if you are a woman poet, you’ll find this collection fascinating.” —Sandra Gilbert

Sharon Bryan, poet and editor of River City, wrote to almost eighty women poets asking them how they felt about their particular relationship to literary tradition in her quest to understand and sort out her own confusions on the topic of gender and poetry. This volume of twenty-two essays by women poets is the fruit of that venture. Among topics considered are the childhood experiences that shaped these authors both as writers and as women, to the thoughts on the poets.