The Great Debate (Judy Grahn Edition)

Fascinating debate on Monday night, in my Modern Poetry class, over how to read a short poem from Judy Grahn's "She Who" sequence (1971-72). Grahn's a lesbian feminist poet, and this sequence is a wonderful mix of theological, political, and interpersonal poems.

Near the middle, we get this boast:

I am the wall at the lip of the water
I am the rock that refused to be battered
I am the dyke in the matter, the other
I am the wall with the womanly swagger
I am the dragon, the dangerous dagger
I am the bulldyke, the bulldagger

and I have been many a wicked grandmother
and I shall be many a wicked daughter

Given this poem's invocations of "She Who," a sort of neo-pagan Goddess, I've always connected that line about "the bulldyke, the bulldagger" not only to sexual terminology of the period, but also to the bull-leaping and Goddess worship back in Knossos, as in this picture:

I take it, that is to say, that this poem is entirely self-celebratory--a sort of chant or rune in which the "I" who speaks gets to take on the time-defying, deliciously "wicked" nature of She Who herself.

What, though, to make of the poem that follows?

foam on the rim of the glass
another wave breaking

foam on the rim of the glass
another wave breaking
she once wanted to be a sailor

now she sits at the bar, drinking
like a sailor

My students were sharply divided. Some thought this was a sad scene: a woman who "once wanted to be a sailor" reduced to drinking away her sorrows, with the pervasive lowercase letters and that sharp linebreak at the close ("drinking / like a sailor") emphasizing the downbeat tone. Others took "drinking / like a sailor" as a livelier twist, such that this woman who once wanted to be a literal sailor has now discovered that kind of adventure and open possibility in her bar-life, and by extension in her erotic or communal life there in the bar.

For some, that is to say, this was a step down from the poem before it, and for others a continuation of--an instance of--the "wickedness" with which that poem ends.

Your thoughts, O Blogosphere?