Bernadette Mayer

Since mainly men write poetry, especially at the time Mayer was writing much more, the idea of pregnancy was ignored in most poetry. Therefore, when Mayer writes about ideas that are considered “female-specific” including pregnancy and periods. In her poem “Baby Come Today, October 4th,” Mayer expresses the idea that she is tired of being pregnant and just wants her baby out of her body. Additionally, she shows the pain that giving birth causes: “A resistance bursting test \Of over 200 pounds per square inch.”² This shows the difficulties that women face in giving birth that men do not often think about.

Mayer also decides to talk about periods in her poem “Ode on Periods.” In this poem, Mayer calls on women to “Hold the bloody sponge up! \For all to see!”³ This shows that Mayer is encouraging women to end the taboo on periods and begin to see them as normal and ordinary. These are experiences unique to women and by choosing to write specifically about this issue, Mayer creates a piece that women can relate to in a way that they cannot relate to other writing. Since women could not relate to poetry, they wouldn’t read poetry, which caused an endless cycle of women not being included in the poetry circle, either in writing or in reading. Mayer chooses to break this cycle. Additionally, she portrays these ideas as normal and a part of everyday life rather than topics that should be viewed as disgusting or taboo. By doing so, Mayer is able to create a community through poetry for women to feel welcome in a sphere where they are usually shunned.

Mayer shows that these issues start young when children are raised. In her "Addendum to Maple Syrup Sonnet," Mayer addresses the issue of separating children based on gender at a young age. She remembers that "the boys are playing frisbee \and the females (sophie & me) are \climbing the tree of my trunks."⁴ This very distinct separation based on gender is important to the argument Mayer creates. She very specifically chooses to separate the "boys" and the "females" by gender.⁴ This very purposeful distinction indicates that Mayer is recognizing the fact that children are separated at such a young age, specifically because of gender. This leads to some of Mayer's other points about men and women being held to different standards.

Mayer continuously make subtle and direct references to sex and her own sexuality in her Sonnets. In one sonnet, she exclaims, “You make love so beautifully I don’t know what to do.”⁷ As a woman, for her to talk about sex is a radical notion. For men, sex is a taboo topic to some degree, but for women that is eve more true. However, Mayer goes even further to comment that “I am a woman & we women must both \Have babies.”⁷ This is even more of a radical move to talk about sex between two women. Already, women’s sexual desires are seen as not as important as men’s, but when Mayer reveals that she is talking about two women, it shows that she values female sexuality. This validates her own sexuality as a woman and shows that she also has desires as a man would. Additionally, the fact that she talks about her own experiences as a woman who likes both men and women is revolutionary in itself. Even though female sexuality is invalidated, homosexuality is still societally problematic, so by speaking about both, Mayer is truly pushing the boundaries of what society views as acceptable. She also talks about the notion that the purpose of women is to have babies, while the purpose of men is to have sex. By ignoring this idea that she must conform to this role, Mayer pushes the boundaries of female sexuality. However, even though she talks about sex so much, Mayer still doesn’t feel that she addressed it as much as she could have. In an interview, Mayer commented that she “never wrote about sex” and that she feels that is a “cop out.”¹ This shows that even though Mayer spoke about sex both subtley and more directly, she felt that it still wasn’t enough. This is interesting to note because Mayer’s work is revolutionary as is even in today’s world.

Left: Photos of Bernadette Mayer. Image courtesy of Dennis Cooper Blogs.

Mayer was revolutionary in many of the topics she discussed. Speaking openly about sexuality and motherhood was not easy at the time and still is not easy today. Mayer comments a lot on these two ideas, a revolutionary notion for the time. As a woman, she was not given the same credibility as men throughout her career. She is often not taken seriously, since she is a woman, yet she still succeeded and was able to write poetry that has a large impact on society. Mayer commented on some of the earlier days where many New York School poets would stand in a street corner and talk about poetry. However, “There were no other women who would [stand in the street corner.]”¹ The fact that Mayer would go to the street corner even though “[she] realized that all these men just thought of me as someone to fuck.”¹ This persistence Mayer demonstrates allowed her to be so successful and pave the way for other women writers after her.

Mayer comments a lot on her admiration of Alice Notley, another female poet in the New York School writing around the same time as Mayer. She comments that “[she finds] a lot of inspiration from her work” and that "[she finds] it interesting to compare notes on working as a poet as a mother.”⁸ This idea of collaboration and representation of women gives women the feeling of being included in poetry and encourages them to read more poetry and potentially even write some of their own.

Additionally, Mayer was able to leave her impact on New York School writing and poetry through the Poetry Project. She led workshops and encouraged a new, more critical thinking focused approach to poetry.⁹ This new approach changed the way poetry was written in the New York School and allowed Mayer to create her own style and impact future poetry with her own style. This is important to acknowledge because often women's contributions to poetry are not as often recognized, and Mayer has contributed to poetry quite extensively.