I want to know if there is one woman
who refuted the New Criticism. One.
I don’t mean walked away or ignored it.
Refuted it. I don’t believe there is one.
I am so disappointed in women.
There was a window of time, before the loosening began
when respectable women critics formed the basis
of literature. Franklin and Hawthorne had female minds.
Millions of women in the 19th century for the first time ever
purchased books. Trembling with passion
was no longer accepted as romance.
The mind prevailed. Now the men had to dance.
The dance was sober, somber, and slow.
Prior to modernist sneering, I present to you:
the genius. The chaste Edgar Allan Poe.