Pollitt, Katha
On every page a hero shakes his fist
while women on tractors chant deliriously “Take me!”,
hydroelectric dams, of their own free will,
produce a cascade of roses and bicycles
– Katha Pollitt, “An Anthology of Socialist Verse”
Read this interview with Katha Pollitt from Katonah Poetry:
Interview with Katha Pollitt – Katonah Poetry Series
Andy Kuhn: You have written so well and so much in such an array of genres that there’s a temptation to take up your poetry in relation to your work in prose, possibly at the risk of not fully engaging the poems themselves, which are extraordinary.
Everything happens at once: court ladies pick iris,
nobles hunt pheasant, poets walk in the snow.
In a dragon-prowed boat, under a canopy of flowers,
Prince Genji, the great lover,
sails in triumph from bedroom to bedroom: in each
a woman flutters like a tiny jewelled fan.
– Katha Pollit, “A Screen Depicting the Fifty-Four Episodes of the Tale of Genji on a Background of Gold Leaf”
Watch Katha Pollitt discuss writing at the NYS Writing Institute:
Katha Pollitt at The NYS Writers Institute in 2015
Katha Pollitt, influential voice of American feminism and long-time columnist for The Nation, is the author of the much-talked-about book, Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights (2014). Publishers Weekly described it as “an impassioned, persuasive case for understanding abortion in its proper context.”
