The Oxford Book of Women's Writing in the United States Book

	Introduction	3
Part I	Short Fiction	7
	Tom's Husband	9
	Tony's Wife	21
	The Revolt Of "Mother"	27
	The Yellow Wall-Paper	41
	A Male Magdalene from Samantha vs. Josiah	56
	A Pair Of Silk Stockings	63
	The Other Two	68
	Seventeen Syllables	83
	Freedom	95
	Sweat	100
	O Yes	111
	A Late Encounter With the Enemy	126
	A Worn Path	135
	The Shawl	143
	Extenuating Circumstances	148
	Miss Clairol	154
	Recitatif	159
	In the American Society	176
	May's Lion	190
	Life in the Iron-Mills	197
	Old Mrs. Harris	229
Part II	Poetry	273
1	Poetry from the Beginning	274
	To My Dear and Loving Husband	275
	The Flesh and the Spirit	276
	On Imagination	279
	The Soul Selects Her Own Society	280
	This is My Letter to the World	281
	My Life Had Stood--A Loaded Gun	281
	After Great Pain, A Formal Feeling Comes	282
	Decade	283
	The Poem as Mask	283
	Lineage	284
	Religion, from Ulysses	285
	In an Iridescent Time	286
	Woman Me	286
	Lady Lazarus	287
2	Contemporary Poetry	291
	Diving Into the Wreck	292
	When I was Growing Up	294
	The Thirty Eighth Year	296
	Song for A Thin Sister	298
	What the Gypsy Said to Her Children	299
	Daystar	300
	A History of costume	301
	Suicide Note	305
	Remember	307
	As Children Together	308
Part III	Public Lives	311
1	Women and the Nation	312
	From On the Equality of the Sexes	313
	A Woman at Forty, from Woman in the Nineteenth Century	316
	The Working-Girls of New York, from Folly As It Flies	321
	The Case Stated	323
2	The Struggle for Understanding	330
	From The Higher Education of Women	331
	The Coyote-Spirit and the Weaving Woman	337
	Women Are Hungry	342
3	From the Personal to the Political	351
	More Than Just a Shrine: Paying Homage to the Ghosts of Ellis Island	352
	Longing to Die of Old Age	356
	Last Words on Vietnam, 1987	358
	Amazons in Appalachia	365
	If Men Could Menstruate	372
	Why I Want a Wife	375
	The Good Guys	377
Part IV	Acting Out	379
1	Plays	380
	Overtones	381
	Trifles: A Play in one Act	393
	Bitter Cane	407
2	Speeches and Performance Pieces	441
	Ain's I a Woman?	441
	Men in Your Life	443
	From United States	447
	Roslyn Malamud: the Coup, from Fires in the Mirror	452
3	Rituals and Ceremonies	457
	Native American Ritual	458
	Kopis'taya (a Gathering of Spirits)	466
	Naming Power	468
	The Foot-Washing	470
	From The Women of Brewster Place	471
	The Sixth Work: Rituals for the Extended Family, from Jambalaya	474
	The Ceremonies of Community, from The Telling	479
Part V	Private Lives	489
1	The Republic of Women's Letters	490
	To John Adams	491
	Letter to the Editors of Freedom's Journal	492
	Letter XV: Man Equally Guilty with Woman in the Fall	493
2	Women in the Nineteenth Century	498
	Diary	499
	Afternoon in the Woods, from Rural Hours	502
	The Trials of Girlhood, from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl	504
	To John Brown	507
	To Louisa Picquet	508
	Diary	509
3	Turning the Century	512
	To Liane De Pougy	513
	To Ben Reitman	514
	From The School Days of an Indian Girl	514
	From Leaves from the Mental Portfolio of an Eurasian	523
	One Farmer's Wife	533
4	Modern Voices	536
	To Anita Pollitzer	537
	Names, from Memories of a Catholic Girlhood	539
	From Storyteller	546
	To Gabriela, A Young Writer	547
Part VI	Bodily Pleasures	551
1	Recipes	552
	The Last Return From the Sea, from The Captain's Lady's Cookbook	553
	Bass for Picasso, from The Alice B. Toklas Cook Book	554
	Sunday Revival Dinner, from The Taste of Country Cooking	556
	Los Dias De Los Muertos, from Food From My Heart	563
2	Erotica	568
	Wild Nights--Wild Nights!	569
	Come Slowly--Eden!	569
	Volcanoes Be in Sicily	570
	The Storm, A Sequel to "The 'Cadian Ball"	570
	From Lifting Belly	575
	I Want to Die While You Love Me	577
	Sea Rose	577
	Mandra, II, from Little Birds	578
	Sappho's Reply	580
	She Didn't Think We Were Married	581
	Fifteen, from Autumn Sequence	581
	Acknowledgments	583
	Topical Listing of Contents	591
	Index	595