The Woolf at My Door

Abstract: This paper explores the work of two twentieth century Canadian poets through a queer lens. Where Gwendolyn MacEwen’s “Memoirs of a Mad Cook” uses cooking as a metaphor to discuss the fear of intimacy, Bronwen Wallace’s “A Simple Poem for Virginia Woolf” draws attention to the ways in which societal expectations and responsibilities limit women’s opportunities for personal fulfillment. Together, the two poems are interpreted as providing commentary on the effects that heteropatriarchy and compulsory heterosexuality have on the lives of queer women. In particular, Wallace’s poem addresses the societal preoccupation with the nuclear family, a construct that has historically excluded queer women. MacEwen parallels such feelings of exclusion and isolation in her poem, “Memoirs of a Mad Cook,” where the speaker deals with her desire for authenticity in intimate relationships despite her inability to achieve it. In relation to the experience of queer women, both pieces speak to the pressure to subdue authentic desire and instead conform to traditionally feminine notions of love and attraction.

“Memoirs of a Mad Cook” by Gwendolyn MacEwen conjures up feelings of anxiety and inadequacy based around some essential sense of lacking connection to others. Early in the poem, the speaker expresses a sense of isolation from their peers, as though they are excluded from a “secret society which meets / in dark cafeterias to pass on the art / from one member to another” (MacEwen 3-5). These emotions are relatable across the human experience, and when paired with Bronwen Wallace’s “A Simple Poem for Virginia Woolf,” can be read as pertaining to the experiences of a queer woman. When assessed together, these poems illustrate a range of the difficult emotions queer women have faced for generations.

Wallace’s poem deals with the ever-present expectations of heteropatriarchy. These ideals teach people to view a woman’s family life as a measure of success, just as much as they would view a man’s career as reflective of his success. This prompts the speaker in the poem to wonder upon seeing a successful woman, “if she’s still married / or has a lover at least,” or if she has children, “and if she didn’t if she’d chosen / not to” (Wallace 41-42; 46-47). In much of Europe and North America, this preoccupation with a woman’s family life stems greatly from a cultural focus on the heteropatriarchal values of the nuclear family. Where same-sex marriage was not legalized in Canada until 2005, the social narrative and concern with the nuclear family at the time that “A Simple Poem for Virginia Woolf” was written would have largely excluded the possibility of same-sex parents.

The poem highlights many of the struggles women face while pursuing a career and addresses how inseparable one’s womanhood is from any other aspect of her life. In addition to the expectation for women to take on family and household responsibilities, Wallace also draws attention to the fact that women’s relationships outside of the nuclear family are often disregarded. The heteropatriarchy values a woman’s usefulness as a wife and a mother, but still places far too little value on relationships that function simply for the woman’s pleasure and fulfillment, rather than for others’ convenience. The speaker’s frustration with this reality is expressed in the description of her emotions during a time when her close friend is hospitalized:

my best friend was sick in intensive care

and I went down to see her

but they wouldn’t let me in

because I wasn’t her husband

or her father her mother

I wasn’t family

I was just her friend

and the friendship of women

wasn’t mentioned

in hospital policy

[…] I went out and kicked

a dent in the fender of my car

and sat there crying because

if she died I wouldn’t be able

to tell her how much I loved her  (Wallace 52-66)

In particular, this section of the poem is emotionally evocative, and Wallace’s account of not being allowed in the hospital brings us back to that sense of exclusion that is so present in MacEwen’s poem.

One facet of the experiences of women which, in the past, has been excluded from the ideal of the nuclear family is the experience of queer women. That sense of exclusion becomes even more obvious when we recall that Virginia Woolf herself was queer and that this aspect of her life was not referenced in “A Simple Poem for Virginia Woolf.” This is not necessarily a fault of Wallace’s, as the poem is mostly about the narrator’s life, and the poem is not told from Woolf’s point of view. After all, Wallace does make a point of expressing her exasperation at how little consideration is given to women’s relationships outside of the nuclear family. Indeed, Virginia Woolf’s intimate romantic relationship with Vita Sackville-West lasted for many years and was certainly outside the realm of the nuclear family. While women’s friendships undeniably deserve recognition, the need for recognition of lesbian relationships cannot be understated. Even today, after so much progress has been made in terms of LGBTQ+ rights, queer history is still erased and underrepresented in popular media. The absence of Woolf’s queerness from a poem that is named after and dedicated to her does stir up many of the sentiments of exclusion and isolation found in MacEwen’s “Memoirs of a Mad Cook.”

A close reading of the title itself provides plenty of information for MacEwen’s case. Food is widely associated with growth and fertility, where fruits—and tomatoes, in particular—are often symbolic of love and sensuality. Based on this symbolism, the term “cook” can be interpreted to mean someone involved in sexual activity. The specification of a “mad” cook is significant to this reading, considering that homosexuality was classified as a mental illness in North America until the late twentieth century. Thus, MacEwen’s poem can be read as the thoughts of a queer person struggling to perform heterosexuality in the interest of self-preservation. The speaker in “Memoirs of a Mad Cook” imagines cooking for someone to be a deeply intimate experience, and expresses an intense concern about whether she is “handling a tomato wrong” (MacEwen 13). This can be read as anxiety about the performance of heterosexuality and the hope that no one will recognize her performance as disingenuous. The warning given by the speaker that “if anyone watches me I’ll scream” demonstrates the self-consciousness that comes from trying to hide something so significant about oneself (12).

The speaker’s intense fear and anxiety in MacEwen’s poem that “something is eating away at me / with splendid teeth” is a familiar feeling for those who keep a central part of their identity a secret, even from their closest companions (15-16). It is difficult to feel a close connection if one cannot be completely honest with others. MacEwen’s final stanza demonstrates this feeling of isolation in its description of the speaker’s inability to offer her friends the essential substance they are seeking, whether that be honesty or vulnerability:

Everyone seems to grow thin with me

and their eyes grow black as hunter’s eyes

and search my face for sustenance.

All my friends are dying of hunger,

there is some basic dish I cannot offer  (20-24)

The poem concludes with the melancholic admission that the speaker’s lover is the most neglected of all and is “almost as lean / as the splendid wolf I must keep always / at my door” (25-27). The sense of obligation in these final words recalls the reality and enforcement of heteropatriarchal assumptions. The experience of compulsory heterosexuality can lead lesbians to pursue relationships with men even though those are not the relationships they want. Just as MacEwen’s speaker is obligated to keep the wolf always at their door, queer women for generations have found no choice but to silence an essential part of themselves and stay in heterosexual marriages to avoid the many prejudices they might otherwise face.

The combination of these two poems by Wallace and MacEwen prompts the investigative reader to reconsider society’s attitude toward queer women. The poignant language in these poems will hopefully encourage audiences to think critically about the way they see queer women portrayed in popular media and to develop more compassion for the emotional struggle which often accompanies the queer experience.

Works Cited 

MacEwen, Gwendolyn. “Memoirs of a Mad Cook.” 70 Canadian Poets. 5th ed., edited by Gary Geddes, Oxford UP, 2014, pp. 133-134.

Wallace, Bronwen. “A Simple Poem for Virginia Woolf.” 70 Canadian Poets. 5th ed., edited by Gary Geddes, Oxford UP, 2014, pp. 356-358.