Elizabeth Willis (born April 28, 1961, Bahrain) is an American poet and literary critic. She currently serves as Professor of Poetry at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Willis has won several awards for her poetry including the National Poetry Series and the Guggenheim Fellowship. Susan Howe has called Elizabeth Willis “an exceptional poet, one of the most outstanding of her generation.”
SHE WHO WROTE
Elizabeth Willis
The first writer to sign her name to a poem is said to be Enheduanna, a Mesopotamian woman who wrote on a tablet, millennia before Mary’s son divided the clock into before and after.
She served Inanna, queen of heaven, who appears with her foot on the back of a lion she’s taking on a short-leashed walk.
Part of Inanna’s work is domestication. To civilize another creature as a mother would, showing the power of her existence through a body that will outlive her.
Civilization is what makes childhood a captivity narrative.
Writing is a refusal that captivity is the end.