Toi Dericotte

I think that this is a poet that I have connected with the most in a while.  I am not sure why considering I am by no means a feminist, at least I don't think I am.  But, as I was reading through "The Undertaker's Daughter" I found myself enthralled in the metaphors and connections that Dericotte draws from these stories and remembrances that she has put into poetry.  I know that it is best to think that the poet did not live out the events that they write about, but the words she writes are so sincere it is hard to think that the situations are anything short of genuine.  I connect to the poems about her father in an odd way.  I say this because it seems that we are polar opposites in the relationships we had with our fathers.  When reading her poem "The Undertaker's Daughter" I was so connected and I felt that I knew what she was saying and I knew the yearning for seeing the feminine side of her father and the maternity come out of him.

In this poem the lines that were especially striking to me were the last few sets of couplets. 

"Once, when I opened the door & saw

him shaving, naked, the sole of his foot
resting on the toilet, I thought

those things hanging down were
udders.  From then on I understood there was a

female part he hid -- something
soft & unportected

I shouldn't see."

I think that these lines are what really describe Dericotte's moment of clarity as a child growing up in an abusive situation with no maternal figure.  She yearned to have that sensitivity and love and I feel that she had a love for her father that was unconditional and she was trying to find justification for herself.  In this image that she paints we see all masculinity stripped down and we are left with a man, bare, and no guard.  I think the image of him being naked is striking in the fact that a child really never sees their father that way.  He is the strong figure and in her case a figure that is feared.  By comparing his genitalia as feminine and animalistic features such as udders she is breaking down that fear, which is where that final clarity comes from.