"Men Talk" by Liz Lochhead

[Thip]

Can somebody help me with this poem "Men Talk" by Liz Lochhead?

I am doing a WT2 for it and I don't really understand the meaning of the poem.

Help pls?

Thanks

[JacquiHB]

It's pretty straight forward, it's pretty much a poem about stereotypical views on women, like about how they talk and what they talk about. so it's saying women only spill beans, chat, and prattle about meaningless things.

even the entire structure of the poem could possibly demonstrate how women talk, because it's one long list of repetition and onomatopoeia, so in a way this poem is a woman talking (if that makes sense? like it goes on and on and on and says the same things over and over again as if it has nothing better to talk/write about).

also the onomatopoeia reduces a women, showing that women only make sounds rather than anything useful coming out of their mouths.

hope that gave you a start? talk about the choice of lexus, techniques used and the structure of the poem.

oh and about the men part, im guessing they want a woman who remains quiet and listens to them? thats a shallow but not entirely sure why its called men talk if the whole thing is about women prattling... you could mention this that even though the poem is supposed to be about men talking, the woman chatters all over it

[Thip]

Thanks.

But how do you answer this question:

How could the text be read and interpreted differently by two different readers?

[JacquiHB]

by two different readers do you mean two different genders?

because to a man it might interpret it as accurate, as guys may say that girls prattle too much etc.

However girls, would obviously dispute this by saying that they dont always prattle about meaningless things etc.

it really depends on what you mean by two different readers... you could also look at younger people and older people, different cultures for example in some cultures women have no right to speak in certain situations and are over ruled by men.