The “Ode to my Bitch Face” of Olivia Gatwood

Critic: Jazzmin Shin Young B. Dulce

This paper argues that the Ode to my Bitch Face is a 21st century literature

poetry.

This research assumption is supported by the literary criticisms of Feminist

criticism, Formalist criticism and Reader-response criticism.

Feminist criticism focuses on how literature has represented women and

relationships between women and men, drawing attention to how women have

been marginalized and denied a voice of their own in much of canonical literature,

and to how literature reflects society’s prevailing ideological assumptions with

regard to gender and power. The poem begins by laying out the various instances

in which women are perceived as mean girls or bitches. I think Olivia Gatwood’s

“Ode to my Bitch Face” exposes how women’s bodies are constantly under

surveillance and subject to the approval of men.

Formalist criticism regards literature as a unique form of human knowledge

that needs to be examined on its own terms. All the elements necessary for

understanding the work are contained within the work itself. The approach used in

the poem is an ode, which is defined as a lyric poem in the form of an address to a

particular subject and written in varied or irregular meter, to address topics of

shame. The title refers to "my bitch face" suggesting it's about Gatwood but by

referring to herself in the second person, addressing herself in the second person,

addressing herself as "you". The characteristics like imagery, symbol,

overstatement, sound and stanzaic structure are given a meaning to the poem.

The using of imagery in this is more concrete than abstract.

Reader-response criticism considers reader’s reactions to literature as vital to

interpreting the meaning of the text. I would say the term “resting bitch face”

wasn’t the salient theme of the poem, rather it was the fact that women feel the

need to be constantly on guard.

In conclusion, Gatwood’s poem is not just mere words, it’s a collective voice

and expression of all the women who at some point in their lives used to smile as

brightly as the sun and were full of life, but have chosen to curb their own

emotions for fear that someone may just snatch it all away from them.

Furthermore, the resting bitch face is not a lack of emotion, rather it is an

expression that conveyed myriad of feelings and contexts attached to it.