Volume 24, Issue 2
FRONT COVER: Isabel Bishop
Self-Portrait, 1927
Table of Contents
Miss Emily Faithfull, Photograph by D. Downey
Of Holy Writing & Priestly Voices, An interview with Esther Broner, by Nancy Jo Hoy
Following The Dordogne, Poetry by E. Grosholz
Feminism and Feminist Criticism, Non-Fiction by Catherine R. Stimpson
Isabel Bishop: Paintings, Drawings, Prints. Appreciation by Helen Yglesias
In the Chair. . .Root Canal, Day #2, Poetry by Carol Potter
Under the Bed, Fiction by Jincy Willet
The Female As Taken From Freshman Essays, Poetry by Colleen J. McElroy
Sylvia and Wendy, Fiction by Myra Goldberg
Plank Hill Farm, Poetry by Lee Upton
Rockin’ A Man, Stone Blind, Poetry by Carolyn Whitlow
The Strange Impossibility of Feminist Criticism, Non-Fiction by Susan H. Leger
The Snakeskin, Poetry by Barbara Unger
Women’s Freud, Non-Fiction by Peggy A. Knapp
Portraits by Women: 1972-1982, Edited by Oriole Farb Feshback.
Eleanor Antin as the King, Photograph by Eleanor Atin
California and Her Father, Drawing by Dotty Attie
Tina and Sally After Eakins, offset lithograph by Oriole Farb Feshbach
Hannah, Painting by Audrey Flack
Sorority, Painting by Karen Lewis
Self-Portrait, Pastel drawing by Jane Lund
Ezra Sesto, Photograph by Wendy MacNeil
Lawrence Alloway, Painting by Sylvia Sleigh
Doris Lessing’s Citta Felice, Non-Fiction by Ellen Cronan Rose
Sacagawea, Poetry by Caroline Knox
Corona, Poetry by Marilyn Hacker
Sylvia Plath’s “Lady Lazarus,” Non-Fiction by Susan Van Dyne
The Rite, Poetry by Lorrie Goldensohn
Softball Dreams, Poetry by Karen Kavorkian
Why the Bride Kept a Bear, Poetry by Susan Donovan
Penelope Jencks: Sculpture, Non-Fiction by Blair Birmelin
Rights of Woman, Poetry by a Lady; facsimile broadside fold-out
Chosen?, Non-Fiction by Mina Curtiss
Elizabeth Bishop’s Library, Non-Fiction by Mildred J. Nash
The Women in My Life, Non-Fiction by Cynthia Griffin Wolff
Rage and Silence in Gwendolyn Brooks’ Maud Martha, Non-Fiction by Mary Helen Washington
Women’s Publications: Some Issues, Non-Fiction by Gail Pool
Alice James Books: The First Decade, Non-Fiction by Marjorie Fletcher
Patty’s Poem, Poetry by Paula Gocker
Contributors
Eleanor Antin teaches at the Univ. of California at San Diego.
Dotty Attie exhibits widely in America and abroad.
Blair Birmelin‘s first novel will be published by Schocken Books next spring.
Isabel Bishop is the distinguished American painter.
E. M. Broner, who teaches at Sarah Lawrence, has just been designated a Wonder Woman.
The memoir in this issue by Mina Curtiss is from a work-in-progress.
Susan Donovan is taking an M.A. in creative writing at Brown.
Oriole Farb Feshbach received a New Jersey State Council on the Arts fellowship for print-making in 1983.
Audrey Flack is a leading photo-realist.
Marjorie Fletcher is founder and president of Alice James Books.
Paula Gocker teaches in the Poets in the Schools program in Alameda County, California.
Myra Goldberg‘s story in this number is from a collection of stories entitled Goosedown.
Lorrie Goldensohn is a poet and critic.
E. Grosholz teaches philosophy at Penn State Univ.; her poems appear in leading journals.
National Book Award recipient (1975) Marilyn Hacker published Taking Notice with Knopf in 1980.
Nancy Jo Hoy is coordinator for inter-disciplinary studies at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo, California.
Penelope Jencks is the sculptor of the recently commissioned statue of historian Samuel Eliot Morrison located on Commonwealth Avenue, Boston.
Poet Karen Kevorkian has four children and teaches at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Peggy Knapp publishes on medieval and renaissance subjects as well as on modern writers.
Caroline Knox‘s first book of poems, The Houseparty, is published by the Univ. of Georgia Press.
A Lady, one of many lost women writers, composed “Rights of Woman” which first appeared in Philadelphia in 1795; it appears here as a facsimile of the Aeifa Press broadside.
Susan H. Leger has a study forthcoming of novels by Marguerite Duras, Virginia Woolf, and Nathalie Sarraute.
Karen K. Lewis has published Views of Women Artists.
Jane Lund, MR cover artist in 1977, lives in Ashfield, Mass.
Colleen J. McElroy has published four volumes of poetry.
Wendy Macneil‘s photography appeared in MR’s “Portfolio” in 1974 and provided the cover of that number.
Mildred J. Nash teaches creative writing in the Burlington, Mass, school system.
Gail Pool is at work on an annotated bibliography of women’s magazines.
Carol Potter has an M.F.A. from the Univ. of Massachusetts (Amherst), and poems forthcoming in American Poetry Review.
Ellen Cronan Rose, of Haverford College, is editing a volume on Margaret Drabble.
Photographer Virginia Cchendler lives and works in N.Y.C.
Sylvia Sleigh was a National Endowment Fellow in 1982.
Catharine Stimpson is the founding editor of Signs.
Barbara Unger has published two chapbooks of poetry.
Lee Upton has published in MR before, and her poems appear in many leading journals.
Susan van Dyne of Smith College is a specialist on the manuscripts of Sylvia Plath.
Mary Helen Washington is the editor of two anthologies of fiction by black women
Carolyn Beard Whitlow is on leave from an administrative post at Cornell.
Jincy Willett has her first published story in this issue of MR.
Cynthia Griffin Wolff is a biographer of Edith Wharton; she is at work on a study of Emily Dickinson.
Helen Yglesias, author of How She Died and Sweetsir and other works, is currently writing her fourth novel.
This number of MR was partially supported by the Massachusetts Council on the Arts and Humanities, and with special assistance from Amherst, Mount Holyoke and Smith Colleges, the University of Massachusetts, and Five Colleges, Inc.
The Editors wish to thank Ted Hughes for permission to quote Sylvia Plath’s “Lady Lazarus.” We also thank John Hicks and the Editors of The Massachusetts Review, Norman Wood and the staff of Commonwealth Press, and Brenda Roberts, for special assistance.
A handsome poster (13″ x IQVi”) for Woman: The Arts 1 &2, featuring a photograph by Lotte Jacobi, is available from The Massachusetts Review for $5.00 by post, or $4.00 at Memorial Hall.