The body as history and ‘writing the body’: The example of grace nichols

Abstract

Taking the example of the poetry of Grace Nichols and more briefly Toni Morrison's Beloved, this paper provides a materialist critique of some French feminists’ individualistic and dehistoricized notions of ‘writing the body’ and of the semiotic as the female body's only authentic language. Arguing that the relation to one's body is necessarily mediated by the social/symbolic order and that subjectivity is historically specific, the paper explores the ways found by Mchols in which to write the black female body of slaves and their African‐Caribbean descendents, in particular her use of metaphor as a means of encompassing both history and the body. This poetic process simultaneously acknowledges the material conditions created by colonialism and slavery, yet seeks a transition to a new symbolic order. The past is embodied; history, resistance and sexuality are linked. I show how we need to appreciate the historical meanings in Nichols’ images and see how she transforms this past into images of resistance and revolution—a possible re‐entry into the imaginary. I finally question the extent to which she is able to effect this transition in her use of Africa and the mother: old and new, distance and return are at best held in necessary relation.