The question of Maria Luisa Spaziani's feminine identity is of pertinence to any consideration of her poetry. Critics have tended to identify her work as "feminine," although this is a category to which Spaziani does not ascribe. Answering a series of questions concerning the place of feminism and feminine experience (both personal and literary) in her poetry in Donne in poesie: Antologia della poesia femminile in Italia dal dopoguerra ad oggi (Women in Poetry: Anthology of Feminine Poetry in Italy from the Postwar Period to Today, 1976), Spaziani asserted that "la singola voce di un poeta-donna valeva e vale di per sé, per una unicità sensibile e morale, la stessa che differenzia i libri importanti scritti da uomini" (the individual voice of a woman poet was and is valuable in and of itself, for its emotional and moral uniqueness, the same singularity that differentiates important books written...