This comment was written by Liza Senatorova on 16 Apr 2024.

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About nature and violence

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Dear Dana, thank you for such a comprehensive analysis of Vasyakina. I find it very convincing, and thinking about the boundaries of a body, I wonder what role nature plays in this cycle of poems. The female body seems to be often described in conjunction with the images of earth, wind, trees, or animals. Probably, Vasyakina shows the impossibility of overcoming or sustaining the fury which emerges in the women, because it is like a natural disaster against which a human cannot stand. But what do you think about it?
Your final question about the violence reminds me of the discussion with Butler we attended a couple of weeks ago. Vasyakina in one of her poems writes that “we can’t stop it we can’t respond with violence we can’t do anything at all.” Is it really so? I am not sure that she believes in it, and her text indeed can be an act of resistance in this case. It feels as if with the power of the word she wants to make the male body vulnerable - I just imagine the reaction of the male readership to this text, and I think that a lot of them would be shocked and hurt for different reasons. Their negative criticism, though, would be the proof of this.

Contents of this reply:

  1. The Gendered Body and the Abject in "Wind of Fury - Songs of Fury" by Oksana Vasyakina