Abstract
This chapter illustrates how a cognitive perspective might help interpret formal strategies used in poetry that, both in theme and form, think through cultural beliefs about the expression of gender involved in the embodied process of writing. Contemporary cognitive approaches to literature often circumvent the question of gender, and even when they do address the connection between gender, mental processes, and literary forms, they typically focus on narrative fiction. This chapter, on the other hand, takes a cognitive approach to text layout, spacing, and styles of inscription in late twentieth and early twenty-first century poetry. After outlining cognitive stereotypes associated with the embodied, spatial task of writing, the chapter traces the effects of multimodal techniques used by two women authors, Rachel DuPlessis and Anne Carson in "Writing" and Antigonick, respectively, to engage with and challenge long-held gendered assumptions about the neurophysiology and experience of writing.