Adrienne Rich

“Responsibility to yourself means refusing to let others do your thinking, talking, and naming for you...it means that you do not treat your body as a commodity with which to purchase superficial intimacy or economic security; for our bodies to be treated as objects, our minds are in mortal danger. It means insisting that those to whom you give your friendship and love are able to respect your mind. It means being able to say, with Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre: "I have an inward treasure born with me, which can keep me alive if all the extraneous delights should be withheld or offered only at a price I cannot afford to give.

Responsibility to yourself means that you don't fall for shallow and easy solutions--predigested books and ideas...marrying early as an escape from real decisions, getting pregnant as an evasion of already existing problems. It means that you refuse to sell your talents and aspirations short...and this, in turn, means resisting the forces in society which say that women should be nice, play safe, have low professional expectations, drown in love and forget about work, live through others, and stay in the places assigned to us. It means that we insist on a life of meaningful work, insist that work be as meaningful as love and friendship in our lives. It means, therefore, the courage to be "different"...The difference between a life lived actively, and a life of passive drifting and dispersal of energies, is an immense difference. Once we begin to feel committed to our lives, responsible to ourselves, we can never again be satisfied with the old, passive way.”  

Violent Rooms

by Dawn Lundy Martin

1.

 

The contours of the girl blur. She is both becoming and fact.

A rancor defines the split. Rip into. Flatten the depth of voice. That

 

urgent flex peels off the steady layers. A girl, I say.

Girl. Gu-erl. Quell. He. He—unbuttons before emergence.

 

As in yard rake pressed to roof of mouth. A fragrant rod.

Suh—sssuh—ssuck. Insistence. Lips go lisp. Our brutish boy.

 

Having not ever been whole. Or simple. Or young. Just split and open.

Not of it. For it. Born a cog of hard wheel at five, six, seven . . .

 

What to know of what has never been?

 

2.  

No common place would do: bar stool, front porch, sea rock.

Such a room should crawl into the soul. Stretch it. Contort it.

 

Could be the straddle of this stranger at the neck. I am this.

She does not waver. She is twenty-five. The bed is wet. As many

 

as had done this thing before. The wound is rupture. Blood-faced.

Between sailing and anchor. No, between shipwreck and burial.

 

What does the mouth do? It does not mean no, saying no.

It does not mean yes. It gurgles. It swells. It is comfort.

 

A quick kick. Mighty, mighty.

A Little Shift

Today I removed some poetry from this blog because I am submitting it for publication. And so, if you are a reader here, I hope you will not mind.  I will continue to post poetry from other poets and artists that are inspiring, like this piece by Alexandre Day.  Other changes will be forthcoming.

Why Poetry

"There's very, very little money to be made from writing poetry. In that way, it's subversive since anyone can steal it. Anyone can take it. Anyone can learn it by heart. Anyone can whisper it, can carry it into a jail, through borders, across all sorts of state lines. Poetry is that which can be carried anywhere. It's invisible. And that makes it very, very precious in a culture where everything has a price."
 -Marie Howe

A poem by Vanessa Shanti Vernando

My Feminism

My feminism is not afraid of sex or secrets or
living fully it is not a religion but a
heightened way of seeing
my feminism does not dislike men but dislikes power
wielded as a force, authority
my feminism is more complex than a girl-power
bumper sticker it means it’s okay to masturbate
initiate sex wear combat boots & dresses take
up knitting or organize radically
my feminism is not detached gender-theorizing
but kindness & recognition that both girls & boys
are socialized into suppressing important parts of
themselves for survival
& that’s not okay
my feminism loves it when girls & boys are friends
my feminism wants respect & love, equality and space
for complexity
there is room in my feminism for all genders or lack
of genders & all flavours of sexual preference & there
is room for the individuals who escape definition
because i think that is beautiful
my feminism is about living as humans even though
the glossy corporate world does not give us that
basic human right & therefore my feminism is
not a commodity but a rallying cry for change
towards what really matters & a desire for
humans to recognize that we all have pains
& fears & joys in common despite our different
genitalia or our pallette of possible skin shades.
my feminism is not afraid & has no copyright.
Share.

A Cure of Souls, by Denise Levertov

The pastor
of grief and dreams

guides his flock towards
the next field

with all his care
He has heard

the bell tolling
but the sheep

are hungry and need
the grass, today and

everyday.  Beautiful
his patience, his long

shadow, the rippling
sound of the flock moving

along the valley.

One of my favorite things about Florida is how much is happening beneath the surface

(Like gallons of water pumping from aquifers into springs, for instance)

"Who can be stillness, little by little
make what is troubled grow clear?
Who can be movement, little by little
make what is still grow quick?"
~Tao Te Ching