Poetic Community by Stephen Voyce

Author:Stephen Voyce [Voyce, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: LIT004080, LIT014000, LIT004120
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Published: 2013-10-23T16:00:00+00:00

Usurping the Left’s Mimeograph Machine: Robin Morgan, WITCH, and Poetic Insurrection

One thing I know: There is no atom that is not political[.]

– Robin Morgan11

Robin Morgan’s “Goodbye To All That” appeared in the first issue of Rat in January 1970. Its publication, together with the first seizure of a male-run leftist newspaper, marked a crucial moment. Of course, Morgan was not the first feminist activist to proclaim a break with the New Left, but the concision and elegant delivery of her tract quickly popularized a position held by numerous proponents of the Women’s Liberation Movement. Morgan records the unsuccessful efforts by the leftist media to mute its far-reaching critical reference;12 soon after its publication, a feminist collective in San Diego adopted “Goodbye To All That” as the title of their newspaper, while numerous other women’s groups and gay organizations acknowledged its influence. Morgan’s indictment is particularly striking in that her denunciation moves much further than the familiar catalogue of outrageously sexist claims by New Left leaders. It was not simply that a few sexist men happened to occupy positions of power within an otherwise egalitarian movement; rather, the very form of leftist organization was structured on a model of exclusion: “[a] genuine Left doesn’t consider anyone’s suffering irrelevant or titillating; nor does it function as a microcosm of capitalist economy, with men competing for power and status at the top, and women doing all the work at the bottom (and functioning as objectified prizes or ‘coin’ as well). Goodbye to all that” (123). It was likely the comparison of leftist organizations to the capitalist mode of production that earned Morgan more than one death threat.13 One should also take pause at her poetic sensibility, her knack for just the right word: “goodbye.” Although radical feminist groups often employed tactics of direct action and active confrontation, the value of withholding one’s participation in struggle was never more evidently powerful than when a significant portion of the Left up and left.

When “Goodbye To All That” appeared in print, below her byline, Morgan identified herself as a member of WITCH. The Women’s International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell first congregated in the autumn of 1968 in New York. Robin Morgan, Florika, Peggy Dobbins, Jo Freeman, and Naomi Jaffe (later a member of the Weather Underground) rank among its initial participants. WITCH “covens” staged public actions, or “hexes,” blending elements of guerilla theatre and poetry with political protest. Yet their goal was expansion. On Mother’s Day one WITCH collective became Women Infuriated at Taking Care of Hoodlums. Amid the tedium of corporate office work, provisional communities formed Women Indentured to Traveler’s Corporate Hell and Women Incensed at Telephone Company Harassment. There was also Women’s Independent Taxpayers, Consumers, and Homemakers; Women Interested in Toppling Consumption Holidays; and, in the case of Morgan’s byline for Rat, Women Inspired to Commit Herstory. Covens spread throughout the country, and, in so doing, sought to multiply their “insouciance, theatricality, humor, and activism” (“WITCH” 538). In fact, the modular structure of WITCH

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