Review of British poet Charlotte Puddifoot’s poem ‘Rape’

Review of British poet Charlotte Puddifoot’s poem ‘Rape’ I request my dear readers to first read the poem from the link https://www.poetrysoup.com/poem/rape_781262 and my review next. Thanks There is no scope for the reviewer to elaborate on any of the stanzas. The disturbing poem is a straight one. The choice of words and the sequencing of the nightmare’s various stages open the windows on the agony and pain and trauma of a rape victim, never known to any of us. I am gender blind and very neutral in my reviews; the gender or race of the poet never matters. Nevertheless, when I read this poem I felt, as a male, I never cared to understand the trauma to a rape victim. This poem is an eye opener. Nonetheless, there is a barrage of questions that always remained, but we cold shouldered and looked away. Some of the questions: 1. The damage and wound inflicted on the victim is irreversible and they carry the cross throughout their lives. Aren’t we looking at all these as a one-time crime and suffering? Don’t we? Is it fair? 2. The ending stanza is asking us to introspect. What are the societal post-trauma offences on the victim, subtly by way of vulgar curiosity, judgmental accusations, and boycott of her family and over ambitious eagerness to paint a future for her? 3. How to reassure her and prevent further wound and damage to her psychology and outlook towards the society, when she relives the trauma again and again during interrogation by the Police or the Defence counsel? 4. Do mothers tell their sons about what the sensitivities and dignity and modesty of a woman are all about, and what are the excesses that are little bit short of a rape? 5. Where does our collective conscience stand? Are we really bothered about the inner wellbeing of a woman? 6. Aren’t we too eager to make her proclaim she is equal to men and is very strong and successful? 7. Does a successful woman feel any safer in anyway, better than an uneducated woman who is dependent for everything on her menfolk in the family? 8. Does not society owe to females the minimum assurance of a fair and safe ecosystem, where her physique is never targeted or focused upon as a product for consumption? 9. Don’t boys need a separate syllabus in all schools and universities to understand that a female is just a female? When do we tell them that the females are no cattle waiting in the backyard of a butcher? 10. Who is going to bell the cat?