18 pages • 36 minutes read
What Do Women Want?
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Summary and Study Guide
Overview
“What Do Women Want?” by Kim Addonizio appears in the poet’s collection, Tell Me, published by BOA Editions in 2000. The collection is Addonizio’s third and was a finalist for the National Book Award. The poem is written in free verse in one continuous stanza of 27 lines.
Its title borrowing from the question famously posed by Sigmund Freud, the poem provides a declarative answer: The speaker wants a red dress. The garment is not haute couture but inexpensive and sexy—a dress to make a woman stand out on a midday street among the shopkeepers and laborers.
Beyond its eye-catching color and body conscious fit, the dress represents more to the speaker than simple attention. It broadcasts an individual spirit determined to experience the primacy of desire, as well as all the love and pain of a life fully embodied.
Poet Biography
Poet, novelist, and nonfiction writer Kim Addonizio was born in Washington DC in 1954 to tennis champion Pauline Betz and sportswriter Bob Addie. Addonizio earned a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts from San Francisco State University and has made the Bay Area her home for most of her life.
Addonizio is the author of seven poetry collections as well two novels, two short story collections, and the Unlock all 18 pages of this Study Guide Plus, gain access to 8,900+ more expert-written Study Guides. Including features:
