Gary Snyder’s Enduring Image of Women
Imagery is perhaps the most powerful tool at a poet’s dispense. Though Gary Snyder is a master at crafting clear, evocative images in his poetry, the picture of women that he builds can be quite problematic when we read him today. In “Praise for Sick Women,” Snyder constructs an image of women who are bound to suffer due to their biological functions, such as menstruation and, potentially, childbearing. Perhaps Snyder didn’t intend to reduce women to only bodily, physical beings without voices, but it’s hard to argue that point when the poem opens with, “The female is fertile, and discipline / (contra naturam) only / confuses her” (291). The image we get from these first few lines is one of the woman who is merely a sexual being, who is confounded by things like thought or knowledge which, according to Snyder, are against her nature as a woman.
In part II, Snyder takes this image of the “sick” woman further: “Apples will sour at your sight. / Blossoms fail the bough, / Soil turn bone-white: wet rice, / Dry rice, die on the hillslope. // All women are wounded” (292). These images convey death and decay, and the first line specifically conjures the image of Eve, commonly blamed for the first sin, and even Medusa, whose gaze alone turns people to stone. “Blossoms fail the bough” also seems to convey the notion that, without pregnancy, a woman is lacking beauty or is somehow failing to prove her femininity. The line “All women are wounded,” which is echoed later in the poem, brings to mind a few questions: Are women wounded by a lack of pregnancy? Does the “wound” refer to menstrual cramps? Are they wounded because they are women? Snyder paints a very one-dimensional picture of women, reducing them (us) down to their potential biological capacities and neglecting to say anything about their (our) actual, lived experiences as human beings. Through this image of the “wounded woman,” he seems to be saying that to be a woman is to be cursed.
The poem concludes with these lines: “Where’s hell then? / In the moon. / In the change of the moon: / In a bark shack / Crouched from sun, five days, / Blood dripping through crusted thighs” (292). Though it’s not clear what group of women Snyder is referring to–my best guess is that the poem is set in India–one thing is: to Snyder, a woman’s biology is her greatest enemy, and the source of all her suffering. “Hell” is in “the moon,” in the very thing that determines a woman’s menstrual cycle. Here, the woman is reduced to a crouching creature, hiding from the light of day, blood dried between her legs. We could give Snyder the benefit of the doubt and assume that this poem was written with the intention to shed (no pun intended) light on the issue of period poverty, but it reads more like a weak pat on the back for having to endure “the curse.” It certainly doesn’t feel like praise.
Snyder, Gary. “Praise for Sick Women.” The Portable Beat Reader. Edited by Ann Charters, Penguin Books, 1992, pp. 291–292.
