Dim Lady

Mullen’s “Dim Lady” is an unconventional love poem modeled superficially on the poetic form of a sonnet. Sonnets are 14-line poems that typically follow a rigid pattern of meter and rhyme and are often passionately amorous in theme. They also often feature a volta—a point when the speaker’s voice turns and changes the subject in a noticeably dramatic way.

“Dim Lady” does not follow all the conventions of a sonnet. Although “Dim Lady” features several rhymes, it has no rhyme scheme; its form is closer to a prose poem than to a metered poem. The poem’s strategic and emphatic use of language, and its rejection of a recognizable poetic form, are characteristic of the Language school of poetry. Mullen’s identification with the Language school is also important when considering the roles of the reader and the writer of the poem. Language poets insist that readers take the opportunity to make their own meanings out of the poems they read; readers are not passive recipients of the writer’s poetic messages, but the real authorities on the topic at hand. This role reversal reveals Mullen’s feminist

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