Anne-Marie Glasheen : Women’s Voices from Francophone Belgium and Luxembourg

Some years ago, I started to go through exhaustive anthologies and individual poetry collections of some 36 women poets from Belgium as I’d been toying with the idea for some time of putting together an anthology of women’s poetic voices from what I deemed to be a much-neglected corner of Europe. I had previously been involved in a Women Writers Exchange programme, that included Belgium, and been struck at the time by how little known Belgian writers were.

I have often been asked what my particular interest in Belgium and Luxemburg is and why I appear to prefer translating women to men. Is it because I’m a feminist? My interest in women’s writing has certainly grown, but not to the exclusion of male writers. And I wouldn’t call myself a feminist, rather a women’s activist. With poetry by women frequently neglected in favour of that by men, I am trying, in my own way, to redress the balance. European poetry has, at least until the last century, been for the most part formed and dominated by men. Since poets must read before they write, this has meant that women poets have had to read mostly male poets. In the past it was well nigh impossible for women poets to find echoes of their own experiences in published poetry and extremely difficult to find a voice that sounded anything like their own. This inevitably affected the way women wrote.

So, to return to the first question: why Belgium and Luxembourg? My father was Belgian and I lived in Belgium until I was six. Educated in England, I knew very little about my Belgian cultural background. My university degree was in French, and I have to admit that I was not aware that, like me, some of the authors I studied had roots in Belgium as they came under the ‘Francophone’ umbrella, and were considered to be French writers. My interest was therefore twofold: to learn more about myself by focusing on women and to reconnect with a culture which, although mine, was foreign to me. Moreover, by focusing on Belgian women poets I hoped to draw attention to their growing presence and importance on the European literary scene and to give them the chance to be heard by a wider audience. The poetry of Luxembourg I discovered after having been invited to translate some of José Ensch’s poetry. I decided that my anthology would include two Luxembourg poets as they – like their Belgian sisters – are underrepresented in anthologies. To date I have found no publisher interested in an anthology of women poets from Belgium and Luxembourg – a sad fact which in itself speaks volumes.

An interviewer once told me that he didn’t believe there was a difference between the way men and women wrote, and that I would be hard pushed to pick a piece of writing and identify the author’s gender. Men and women do write differently and this is especially true when it comes to poetry. It has been through my work as a translator that I have noted the greatest differences in the way the sexes write. Whilst a single poem might not reveal the author’s gender, a body of work certainly does. Women have tended to be concerned with different themes and have struggled to legitimise their subject matter since such feminine subjects as aspects of domestic life and motherhood are by and large regarded as unsuitable themes. Women are inclined to use form differently and as a rule work outside contemporary traditional forms and there is a difference in the way they use language. There is a lightness of touch, images and imagery drawn from different landscapes, memories: a poetic vision that is truly female.

The selection process in 1996, was no easy task and the initial shortlist was pruned a further three times. Some fine poetic voices were unfortunately excluded as I was after a friendly anthology rather than a hefty tome. The eight women poets – seven from Belgium, one from Luxembourg – featured in this issue of PSR will hopefully tempt the reader to discover and explore the poetry of these countries, to hear the whispers and shouts of women poets exploring such issues as: birth, love, life, death, relationships and last but not least: selfhood – what it is to be a woman.

In José Ensch we discover a poetry that is wonderfully constructed yet fluid. In Andrée Sodenkamp there is a certain opulence in the way she writes of physical love – its extremes as well as its chasteness. Very much involved in the existential issues of their time, the work of Hélène Prigogine and, more especially, of Claire Lejeune, should be seen within a metaphysical context. ‘Reveal the time after death …’ wrote Hélène Prigogine, ‘do not trap words, the tale is the meal we need ’. Woman, in Lejeune’s work, knows where she is going though she will not pass over the opportunity to follow what her dreams might reveal. Liliane Wouters is perhaps the last of her generation to represent Belgium’s two cultures. Brought up speaking Dutch and given a French education she writes in both languages. Her poetry is unmistakably lyrical, her poems crafted to observe the rules of classical prosody. Mimy Kinet’s poetic style is both concise and emotionally intense. To Françoise Lison-Leroy poetry is a field of vision, a limitless expanse in which we discover her inner landscape. Whilst speaking of such themes as love, womanhood and the creative act, Béatrice Libert’s poetry also reflects her fascination with the complexities of language.



So, why women? On a personal level, to deepen my understanding of my gender and myself. Why poetry? Because I write poetry, and because it is the medium through which women’s voices come out clearest. Why Belgium and Luxembourg? Not solely because, on a cultural level, they are neglected countries, but also because I spent my formative years in Belgium. And, if moving to this country exiled me from my cultural roots and to a degree from my self, then this journey has reconnected me to those roots and to that self. It has been a personal journey and an exploration of identity.

‘Woman’, claimed the surrealists, ‘is the future of man.’ And Pierre Béarn: ‘La poésie ne sera sauvée du dédain actuel que par une poignée de femmes évadées vers l’humain.’ (‘Poetry will only be saved from the disdain in which it is held by a handful of women who have fled to what is human.’)