Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Violet Transparent

2011; Oxford University Press; Volume: 18; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/isle/isr063

1759-1090

L. L. Day,

Ecocriticism and Environmental Literature

Violet Transparent is a riveting collection of environmental poetry. Starting with the first poem, “Mirror of the Ages,” Anne Coray identifies with all of Earth's creatures—from sponges and reptiles to birds, predators, and prey—and suggests that such empathy is an important aspect of being human: “at the birth of my first calf, my antlers fell / but still I was not a true woman” (9–10). To be a true woman, one must first know how it feels to be a deer, although even this is not enough. The implication is that one must experience aspects of being both male and female: the speaker has been a female deer with antlers. In most deer species, only males have antlers. In reindeer and caribou, however, both males and females have antlers, and in a few other species, females with antlers occasionally appear. The poet has been one of these antlered females, who can be mistaken for males.