LITR 5731: Seminar in American Minority Literature
University of Houston-Clear Lake, spring 2003
Poetry Presentation Summary

"The Kilgore Rangerette Whose Life Was Ruined"

By Cynthia MacDonald

Presented By Elizabeth Martin

Bio of Author

A few requirements to become a Rangerette are the ability to complete a fall splits and a completely vertical kick.  They go through inspections on their hair, make-up and uniform.  The idea is to create cookie-cutter perfection, while dancing, but carries over to the rest of life.

In the poem there is a feeling she is letting people down, they buy her gifts and she associates screwing up with presents. When her fiancé gives her a slip after the performance it is as if he saying you slipped up in life.  In the end of the poem we see her scavenging the streets for presents. 

The issue of conformity comes up a lot. It is essential for Rangerettes and becoming a bag lady frees her from this. 

The poem seems innocent and kind of funny until the end when it talks about rape and mutilation.  Maybe by saying she was not mutilated just raped she meant they did not mutilated who she was.

Question:  How do you think her appearance as a woman came through?

Alcira: Sees the downward beginning as far back as the Neiman’s jobs.  How do we view normalcy?  Bag Lady?  Rangerettes?

Liz: She fell apart when she messed up the kick- effected everything else

Rosalyn: She has nightmares about tripping- pretty, poetical while happening, but not good.  She undermines herself so much stress on perfection as a Rangerettes--- would a person with a different (non Rangerette) have moved on?  Not dwelled on all these trivial incidents?

Liz:  Not trivial?  She is kicked out of college

Alcira:  in the title, she uses the passive as if it is inevitable

Rosalyn:  She becomes obsessive- compulsive

Alcira: She focuses on the negative

Everyone:  Her jobs go further and further down

Liz:  The poet was not ever a Rangerette and there is not a relation between the author and the poem

Jana: maybe because she came to Texas form the North she is almost making fun of the Rngerettes.  Outside perspective

Alcira: A social critique

Jennifer:  This is hilarious.  Funniest thing, I’ve read the nosebleed, the tripping.  These are things that become family lore.  You laugh.  You grow.

Liz: Was funny to me

Jennifer:  Play on words with the swans--- hissed off

Alcira:  Satire and critique that even those Russian dancers weren’t good enough

Liz:  The last two lines are hateful

Dr. White: Mutilation theme, blades, tines

            Power structure, rape- one mistakes crushes her à axe in the first stanza

            The last line in the first stanza- “keyboard”

Liz: Anger as well as humor here

Jennifer:  Mixed images

Rosalyn:  Keyboard, piano, in the derby demolitionà random destructionà seen on TV

Jana:  Yeah, monster trucks

Alcira:  You can appreciate the way she lays out the words à not rhyme but poetic

Rosalyn:  The principal seems harsh about the play

Alcira:  She sees the worst in everything

Dr. White:  The pattern of gifts, of screwing up

Liz:  The only one that makes sense is the hankerchief, if they are given as gifts to correct her mistakes

Alcira:  Gifts to make up for what she’s lacking

Dr. White: The satin slip.  He breaks up with her but gives her an undergarment

Many Voices:   She breaks up with him--"the pink slip"

Rosalyn:  I didn’t get that she was kicked out

Liz:  She had to leave.  You would get kicked out for that.  I had to sit out an entire season of the Nutcracker for turning the wrong way.

Liz:  People pay money to see them perform,  it is a prestige thing

Dr. White:  Is this comical or serious?

Poem:  “I don’t feel much these days”

We want this to be funny.

            Theory of Comedy- for things to be funny, you can’t feel them.  Mask the pain.

            I’m not sure of this, the audience not the participant.  How do you resolve this?

Alcira: How skewed is it to think street life is better than a Rangerette

Several:  No pressure to be perfect on the streets

Jennifer: Not about the authorà the poem stands on its own

Liz:  She’s from New York

Alcira:  Maybe she had a conflict about moving here.  Texas is a force of nature.

Jana:  Maybe the poet met somebody who had been a Rangerette

Rosalyn:  The bag/kangaroo imagery carrying her baby around

Alcira:  Would she be careless if it was not attached to her in a pouch?

Rosalyn: Prestige- she brags about being the only bag lady in Dallas.  The grey suede bag that her grandfather gives her.

Liz:  Being a Rangerette is the only big reason to go to Kilgore.  It is not known for other things.  It is a 2 year school

Dr. White:  Classy 2- year school compare with macho Texas Rangers

Rosalyn and Jana:  Poems a bash on Dallas, pro Houston poem.