http://dl.lib.brown.edu/repository2/repoman.php?verb=render&id=120187698...

"I AM THE WOMAN" is a poem in the journal Poetry, October 1912 (1.1). When I read it through the first time it reminded me of the journal we read previously, The Free Woman. The poem seems to start out with talking about what and who the woman was- obedient. It follows with "Locked up her mouth from scornful speaking; now it is open to speak". As I continued to read there are a few lines that made my thoughts go in two different directions and I am not completely sure which direction is more correct. The lines start with "I am also the Mother.." and ends with "..I soothed him and laid him to rest" (p 4, 4-14). The beginning of these lines make me think of war and nurturing or healing the hurt, but then as it goes on I wonder if the poem speaks of nurturing the dying or laying with men. Parts of the poem really made me think of prostitution and I recalled from British Woman Writers of the Great War, "contributed to women's economic, social and sexual emancipation" (p 85). It sounds like it suggests that woman did not have a choice after the war because they were forced to retain the positions in the home that they once had and not all women could handle going backwards.

"Loosing upon us the wounding joy and the wasting sorrow of life." This line made me think that the women are fighting for their voice and fighting to be themselves outside of the traditional obedient housewife. By denying them their voice they are wasting their lives, because they are not being given the freedom to be more than who they are and more than what they are told to be. What confused me the most was after reading this poem and noting the author of it, William Vaughn Moody, is male. Was the author male and shared the beliefs and views of many women from this time or was it a woman disguising herself as a man, because of the fear of speaking out? I am not entirely sure. With each read I have different thoughts that pop into my head and I am not entirely sure of the direction or the focus of this poem. It could be women's sufferage and/or war or something different entirely.