Poetess Futures: Unsettling Victorian Poetry at Scale

Abstract

190 6 Kaur’s use of “we” recalls Webster’s insistent use of the pronoun in her essays and dramatic monologues—and her tongue-in-cheek recommendation that poets use “we” instead of “I” to protect themselves from biographical reading practices (155). While Kaur may seem less concerned than Webster about the distance between poem and biography, in both poets’ work, “we” serves as a constant reminder of the co-presence of reader, poet, and poem.