Encountering maternal silence: writing strategies for negotiating margins of mother/ing in contemporary Canadian prairie women's poetry

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dc.contributor.authorHiebert, Luann E.
dc.contributor.examiningcommitteeBrydon, Diana (English, Film, and Theatre) Perry, Adele (History) MacDonald, Tanis (English and Film Studies, Wilfrid Laurier University)en_US
dc.contributor.supervisorCalder, Alison (English, Film, and Theatre)en_US
dc.date.accessioned2016-04-11T20:19:37Z
dc.date.available2016-04-11T20:19:37Z
dc.date.issued2016
dc.degree.disciplineEnglish, Film and Theatreen_US
dc.degree.levelDoctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)en_US
dc.description.abstractContemporary Canadian prairie women poets write about the mother figure to counter maternal suppression and the homogenization of maternal representations in literature. Critics, like Marianne Hirsch and Andrea O’Reilly, insist that mothers tell their own stories, yet many mothers are unable to. Daughter and mother stories, Jo Malin argues, overlap. The mother “becomes a subject, or rather an ‘intersubject’” in the text (2). Literary depictions of daughter-mother or mother-child intersubjectivities, however, are not confined to auto/biographical or fictional narratives. As a genre and potential site for representing maternal subjectivities, poetry continues to reside on the margins of motherhood studies and literary criticism. In the following chapters, I examine the writing strategies of selected poets and their representations of mothers specific to three transformative occasions: mourning mother-loss, becoming a mother, and reclaiming a maternal lineage. Several daughter-poets adapt the elegy to remember their deceased mothers and to maintain a connection with them. In accord with Tanis MacDonald and Priscila Uppal, these poets resist closure and interrogate the past. Moreover, they counter maternal absence and preserve her subjectivity in their texts. Similarly, a number of mother-poets begin constructing their mother-child (self-other) relationship prior to childbirth. Drawing on Lisa Guenther’s notions of “birth as a gift of the feminine other” and welcoming the stranger (49), as well as Emily Jeremiah’s link between “‘maternal’ mutuality” and writing and reading practices (“Trouble” 13), I investigate poetic strategies for negotiating and engaging with the “other,” the unborn/newborn and the reader. Other poets explore and interweave bits of stories, memories, dreams and inklings into their own motherlines, an identification with their matrilineage. Poetic discourse(s) reveal the limits of language, but also attest to the benefits of extra-linguistic qualities that poetry provides. The poets I study here make room for the interplay of language and what lies beyond language, engaging the reader and augmenting perceptions of the maternal subject. They offer new ways of signifying maternal subjectivities and relationships, and therefore contribute to the ongoing research into the ever-changing relations among maternal and cultural ideologies, mothering and feminisms, and regional women’s literatures.en_US
dc.description.noteMay 2016en_US
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1993/31201
dc.language.isoengen_US
dc.rightsopen accessen_US
dc.subjectElegiac poetryen_US
dc.subjectMotherhooden_US
dc.subjectMaternity poetryen_US
dc.subjectCanadian poetryen_US
dc.subjectWomen authorsen_US
dc.subjectPoeticsen_US
dc.subjectMaternal subjectivityen_US
dc.subjectMaternal theoryen_US
dc.subjectFeminist poetryen_US
dc.subjectPrairie poetryen_US
dc.subjectPregnancyen_US
dc.subjectChildbirthen_US
dc.subjectMourning mother lossen_US
dc.subjectMourning child lossen_US
dc.subjectMaternal lineageen_US
dc.subjectMother poetsen_US
dc.subjectPrairie women's poetryen_US
dc.subject21st century poetryen_US
dc.subjectAriel Gordonen_US
dc.subjectBarbara Langhorsten_US
dc.subjectCanadian literature (English)en_US
dc.subjectCharlene Diehl-Jonesen_US
dc.subjectClaire Harrisen_US
dc.subjectCultural transmissionen_US
dc.subjectCultural violenceen_US
dc.subjectCulture and motherhooden_US
dc.subjectDomestic violenceen_US
dc.subjectElegyen_US
dc.subjectHospitality and responsibilityen_US
dc.subjectJennifer Stillen_US
dc.subjectLisa Martin-DeMooren_US
dc.subjectLiterary criticismen_US
dc.subjectLouise Bernice Halfeen_US
dc.subjectMaternal discourseen_US
dc.subjectMaternal aestheticsen_US
dc.subjectMaternal inheritanceen_US
dc.subjectMaternal silenceen_US
dc.subjectMaternal writingen_US
dc.subjectMéira Cooken_US
dc.subjectErín Moureen_US
dc.subjectMelanie Dennis Unrauen_US
dc.subjectMother mythsen_US
dc.subjectPostcolonial writingen_US
dc.subjectMotherhood studiesen_US
dc.subjectMotherhood and feminismen_US
dc.subjectPrairie women poetsen_US
dc.subjectRegional literatureen_US
dc.subjectRita Bouvieren_US
dc.subjectSally Itoen_US
dc.subjectSarah Klassenen_US
dc.subjectSu Crollen_US
dc.subjectSubjectivityen_US
dc.subjectWriting and motherhooden_US
dc.subjectWriting the otheren_US
dc.titleEncountering maternal silence: writing strategies for negotiating margins of mother/ing in contemporary Canadian prairie women's poetryen_US
dc.typedoctoral thesisen_US
local.subject.manitobayesen_US
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