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Articles

Volume 34, Number 2 (2009)

Inhabitable Spaces in Claire Harris’s She

Soumise
février 23, 2010
Publié-e
2006-10-10

Résumé

Claire Harris’s poetry has proven remarkable not only for its eloquence and its challenging subject matter but also for its use of a visually experimental form. In Harris’s She, the visually experimental form is used to perform the protagonist’s pursuit of a non-constrictive space, where she can function as a productive adult. Constructing herself as the marks on the page rather than the creator of those marks – the written instead of the writer – Penelope reveals that the page does not ultimately offer her the welcoming space she seeks. She is left wondering, “i am fiction / so who writes me?” The hegemonic imperial control of language renders it impossible for Penelope to write herself on a clean slate. Rather than a space where she can freely construct a representation of herself and her experiences of colonialism and immigration, the blankness of the page is infused with her sense of lost history and loss of self.