Michele Valerie Ronnick (Wayne State University)
Leda and the Swan in the Work of Three African American Women Poets: June Jordan (1936-2002), Lucille Clifton (1936-2010) and Lyrae Van Clief-Stephanon (1971- )
The influence of the myth of Leda and the swan upon the work of women poets of European descent such as Hilda Dolittle (1886-1961), Mona Van Duyn (1921- 2004), Lorna Crozier (1948- ) and Eleanor Brown (1969- ) has not gone unnoticed. (Goldensohn 1978, Mitchell 1991, Oró-Piqueras 2008) On the other hand full analysis of the same myth as it occurs in the creative works of women of African descent still needs to be done for the pernicious effect of racism that has divided us physically and intellectually would have us conclude that African American women poets have had no interest in Leda. This paper will carry out a three-part investigation into the image of Leda and the swan found in June Jordan’s response to W. B. Yeats’s “Leda and the Swan,” (1923) through her poem “The Female and the Silence of the Man” (1989), through the voice Lucille Clifton gave to Leda in “leda 1,” “leda 2,” and “leda 3” (1993), and through Lyrae Van Clief-Stephanon’s examination of the idea that “beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror,” in “Leda” and “Black Swan” in Black Swan (2001), in which collection Daphne, Danae, Europa, and Helen also have a place. (Williams, 2005; catbird2021) These writers examine certain themes common to the experience of black women such as sexual violation, physical and misogynistic abuse by powerful predatory males, the birth of children who will never know an authentic father, and the absence of regular nuclear family life. Issues concerning African American women’s identity linked to popular assumptions about their sexuality figure into each of the poems. The poets have used Leda to confront subjects considered taboo or unmentionable. By feminizing and Africanizing their themes, they have created a form of their own Afro-classical mythology.