Gilbakka its very noble of you to remember the daughters of our working class ...they are some of the most oppressed folks in this world......

More than oppressed, Churchill.

Suppressed, repressed, depressed, pressed....

That's a very touching poem

You're a perceptive reader, Riya. Keep it up.

I think I've posted here before that the poorest in America are richer than the richest in some parts of the world.

Education can be a great equalizer.

Gentle sir, I do not want to rain on your party but some water at times clarifies the color of things. A beautiful girl may not have much but she has her looks. Think of the homely girl who has nothing! No one will ever know the insides of her heart and the numerous tiny cuts society makes on her soul as she passes through life. Worse, the single old woman suffers the indignities of being an old haige

And it is not poverty that makes for a sad life of these women. It is the culture that prices them cheap. Indian women especially bear the burden as the moral guardians of the groups culture boundaries. Who they are is based on  what others are measure as their supposed virtues.

They had no say in their lives historically ( remember the practice of wife murders was prevalent in our culture in the 1890's to early 1900's . Women had no say in their lives but they are blamed for all sorts of immoral infractions while the men skate by with nary a scolding. No one ever calls an Indian man a moral derelict even if caught in  flagrante delicto with his best friend's wife. The friend may want his head but the society never sanctions the man. That woman however would be tarred and feathered and branded with a scarlet letter for all eternity. Her daughters will then carry her scarlet letter. Note Guyana had 31 wife murders last year an dozens more malicious wounding causing serious bodily harm.

Our disrespect is so deep rooted that it extends transparently into our popular culture where we sing with delight  "leggo me nah bougie buddy gone america"; "brown skin gal stay home and mine baby"; sancho a lick he lova pon de dam"; "long long time lulu gal", never seeing th sick our contempt for our women folks. 

My point is our women, beautiful or ugly educated or not, gets shafted in the society. America and western culture of the modern era have for the first time informed them that they are more than the projections of our minds...at least in some segment of the community. Listen to those RH bois wail at how de woman does run to the police if you only raise yo voice pon them!   We should not be sorry for the women suffering. We should be sorry that we are such degenerates that we often let it happen without social sanctions.

BTW I do not interpret the poem as being about a beautiful and poor woman. It never generates those allusions. It spoke to the psychological damage of all women that is reduced to having worth only as a sexual tool. Other than that she is a scullery maid with no identity. And it is menfolks that made her so.

Danyael:

Do you always have to be a sourpuss ?

Anyway you made some valid points.

Rev

Danyael, I appreciate your taking time to share your thoughts on this poem. Also, I respect your interpretation of it.

We must bear in mind, though, that a poem is open to endless interpretations. Each reader brings his/her own knowledge, experience and world view to find a meaning within the poem.

I am just giving you the standard definition of what has been a feminist icon. It is about the colonized body of the woman ( brown or otherwise) whose identity as an individual is anonymized and whose beauty is suppressed. Instead she is reduced to a sexual object and a tool, for domestic drudgery.

The longing here is not to merely be under a palm tree or a pool  where she can see reflections of her self. It is the longing to be free and the mental release that allows for her to fully see the totally of her being. This is, of course,  inclusive of herself as a sexual being, but exceeding it in richness that comes only come with a liberation of the mind of the audience as well as herself. We are trapped into standard modes of thinking as she is  ourselves so we miss the these salient cues.

Gilly, I endorse your thoughts about people bringing their own knowledge and experiences to a poem. It's like looking at a painting...some might go on and on about a piece, while others simply move on.

Danyael, I respect your point of view and value your post too.

I endorse your view of people bringing their own ideas and views to a painting or poem and taking away from it what they can abstract given their understanding. That is not to say the painting or poem do not subscribe to  a point of view. Painters and poets set out to convey a message. They are good or bad depending on how well the use the tools at their disposals to execute their intent. Grasping intent is grasping the context of a poem or painting.

Similarly, a person looking at a cubist painting may see a confused set of lines and walk away dumbfounded. One with an understanding of the form penetrates into the artist intent. Poems are circumscribed by its rhythm and word patterns, its metaphors and the symbols  and these are tools to convey the Poets intent. These are not willy nilly.

Each of us may extract different levels of emotive content and meaning from works of art but these are affective only if one grasps the intent of the painter or poet.