"Other-Writing" in Selected Texts by Daphne Marlatt

Abstract

<p>Language is loaded. Entire ideologies can hide themselves within the contextual meaning of one small word - "mankind" for example. Daphne Marlatt is a poet who attempt to write against our patriarchally imbued language to find an "other" space, a woman-space, within which to write. This thesis attempts to unveil the strategies that Marlatt uses to find this "other writing" by investigating poems from her earlier works (leaf leaf/s, Net Work) , her long poem "How Hug a Stone," and her widely unstudied collaboration with Betsy Warland, "Reading and Writing Between the Lines." I conclude with a discussion on the philosophical and political problems faced by any writer who attempts to write "otherly."</p> <p>This is by no means either a comprehensive or a conclusive study. The nature of both Marlatt's work and any study that attempts to investigate "other" language systems is anti-cohesion and against conclusions. Therefore, the gaps remain in my text to encourage, as Marlatt does, a reading that is conscious of the language structures that encode our understanding.</p>