Study Questions--Categories and Boundaries
 

1. For each poem, think about the categories that are described and how they are being questioned by the author.
2. Having distinct categories can make it easier to talk about the world, but it can make what falls outside the categories harder to talk about. What devices are used in each poem to describe what might otherwise be indescribable? (Look particularly at figurative language, inversions of your expectations in a particular situation,
3. You have read a number of poems written by women about the 18th century. What do you think fascinated them about the particular topics they chose in the reading for today?