titter-titter ... tee-hee ... YIKES!: A Conversation on Humor in Women's Poetry

In spite of contributions from such wits, satirists, and comediennes as Dorothy Parker, Carolyn Kizer, Sylvia Plath, Lucille Clifton, Nikki Giovanni, Wanda Coleman, Sommer Browning, and Morgan Parker, women remain underrepresented in the scant literature on humor in contemporary American poetry. Why? What makes a poem funny, and who says so? Is there a risk to joking—and as a lady!—in such an earnest art form? An eclectic group of women will discuss how they use humor as a strategy in their narrative, formal, hybrid, and performance poetry.