111 Gender and feminism poems

What women wander? Not many. All. A few. Most would, now & then, & no wonder. Some, and I’m one, Wander sitting still. My small grandmother Bought from every peddler Less for the ribbons and lace Than for their scent Of sleep where you will, Walk out when you want, choose Your bread and your company. She warned me, “Have nothing to lose.” She looked fragile but had High blood, runner’s ankles, Could endure, endure. She loved her rooted garden, her Grand children, her once Wild once young man. Women wander As best they can.

The princess in her world-old tower pined A prisoner, brazen-caged, without a gleam Of sunlight, or a windowful of wind; She lived but in a long lamp-lighted dream. They brought her forth at last when she was old; The sunlight on her blanched hair was shed Too late to turn its silver into gold. “Ah, shield me from this brazen glare!” she said.

Fashionable women in luxurious homes, With men to feed them, clothe them, pay their bills, Bow, doff the hat, and fetch the handkerchief; Hostess or guest, and always so supplied With graceful deference and courtesy; Surrounded by their servants, horses, dogs, — These tell us they have all the rights they want. Successful women who have won their way Alone, with strength of their unaided arm, Or helped by friends, or softly climbing up By the sweet aid of ‘woman’s influence’; Successful any way, and caring naught For any other woman’s unsuccess, — These tell us they have all the rights they want. Religious women of the feebler sort, — Not the religion of a righteous world, A free, enlightened, upward-reaching world, But the religion that considers life As something to back out of! — whose ideal Is to renounce, submit, and sacrifice, Counting on being patted on the head And given a high chair when they get to heaven, — These tell us they have all the rights they want. Ignorant women — college-bred sometimes, But ignorant of life’s realities And principles of righteous government, And how the privileges they enjoy Were won with blood and tears by those before — Those they condemn, whose ways they now oppose; Saying, ‘Why not let well enough alone? Our world is very pleasant as it is,’ — These tell us they have all the rights they want. And selfish women, — pigs in petticoats, — Rich, poor, wise, unwise, top or bottom round, But all sublimely innocent of thought, And guiltless of ambition, save the one Deep, voiceless aspiration — to be fed! These have no use for rights or duties more. Duties today are more than they can meet, And law insures their right to clothes and food, — These tell us they have all the rights they want. And, more’s the pity, some good women, too; Good conscientious women, with ideas; Who think — or think they think — that woman’s cause Is best advanced by letting it alone; That she somehow is not a human thing, And not to be helped on by human means, Just added to humanity — an ‘L’ — A wing, a branch, an extra, not mankind, — These tell us they have all the rights they want. And out of these has come a monstrous thing, A strange, down-sucking whirlpool of disgrace, Women uniting against womanhood, And using that great name to hide their sin! Vain are their words as that old king’s command Who set his will against the rising tide. But who shall measure the historic shame Of these poor traitors — traitors are they all — To great Democracy and Womanhood!

Aphra Behn is not wearing all her clothes in some part of South America nobody knows. Everyone is polite, and not. Maybe she left off her petticoats, her skirts look limp. She coughs. Of course her bosom is bare. He's bats about her, also noble and misunderstood — that’s too much culture for you. His black skin is just skin, what with his wealth,frisson, and all those bearers and banners. The play is predominant, the manor- house-reach. What she makes of it — not of husbands, not even of the rights of humans richer-than- thou, the local gentry who scheme more than they breed — is insolence, not to bore us. What is real is real, she says, wearing what he wants with Damn the insects biting. His type tends to the florid—strange how everyone speaks well of him, then how chains become him — who says that? — and someone dies, someone like her father who fueled a nice plantation with witty wives and loneliness and slaves enough to drive the horses into pantaloons and full sleeves— or play. Aphra grins at us, in disrepute as always, sailing to England on a petticoat.

I language want to dress my fancies in, The hair's uncurled, the garment's loose and thin. Had they but silver lace to make them gay, They'd be more courted than in poor array; Or, had they art, would make a better show; But they are plain; yet cleanly do they go. The world in bravery doth take delight, And glistering shows do more attract the sight: And every one doth honor a rich hood, As if the outside made the inside good. And every one doth bow and give the place, Not for the man's sake but the silver lace. Let me intreat in my poor book's behalf, That all will not adore the golden calf. Consider, pray, gold hath no life therein, And life, in nature, is the richest thing. Be just, let Fancy have the upper place, And then my verses may perchance find grace.

Oh, woman, woman in thy brightest hour Of conscious worth, of pride, of conscious power Oh, nobly dare to act a Christian’s part, That well befits a lovely woman’s heart! Dare to be good, as thou canst dare be great; Despise the taunts of envy, scorn and hate; Our ‘skins may differ,’ but from thee we claim A sister’s privilege, in a sister’s name. We are thy sisters, Oh, woman, woman in thy brightest hour Of conscious worth, of pride, of conscious power Oh, nobly dare to act a Christian’s part, That well befits a lovely woman’s heart! Ddare to be good, as thou canst dare be great; Despise the taunts of envy, scorn and hate; Our ‘skins may differ,’ but from thee we claim A sister’s privilege, in a sister’s name. We are thy sisters, – God has truly said, That of one blood, the nations he has made. Oh, christian woman, in a christian land, Canst thou unblushing read this great command? Suffer the wrongs which wring our inmost heart To draw one throb of pity on thy part; Our ‘skins may differ,’ but from thee we claim A sister’s privilege, in a sister’s name. Oh, woman! – though upon thy fairer brow The hues of roses and of lilies grow— These soon must wither in their kindred earth, From whence the fair and dark have equal birth. Let a bright halo o’er thy virtues shed A lustre, that shall live when thou art dead; Let coming ages learn to bless they name Upon the altar of immortal fame.

I have to thank God I'm a woman, For in these ordered days a woman only Is free to be very hungry, very lonely. It is sad for Feminism, but still clear That man, more often than woman, is pioneer. If I would confide a new thought, First to a man must it be brought. Now, for our sins, it is my bitter fate That such a man wills soon to be my mate, And so of friendship is quick end: When I have gained a love I lose a friend. It is well within the order of things That man should listen when his mate sings; But the true male never yet walked Who liked to listen when his mate talked. I would be married to a full man, As would all women since the world began; But from a wealth of living I have proved I must be silent, if I would be loved. Now of my silence I have much wealth, I have to do my thinking all by stealth. My thoughts may never see the day; My mind is like a catacomb where early Christians pray. And of my silence I have much pain, But of these pangs I have great gain; For I must take to drugs or drink, Or I must write the things I think. If my sex would let me speak, I would be very lazy and most weak; I should speak only, and the things I spoke Would fill the air awhile, and clear like smoke. The things I think now I write down, And some day I will show them to the Town. When I am sad I make thought clear; I can re-read it all next year. I have to thank God I'm a woman, For in these ordered days a woman only Is free to be very hungry, very lonely.

Adam ate an apple it got stuck in his throat and they called him Eve the progenitor the creator of all things the mother of strength and fortitude and sadness Adam ate an apple choked on it so hard a rib popped out of his chest and they called it Eve the progenitor the creator of all things the mother of strength and fortitude and sadness it takes the hacking of a body to make a woman Adam hacking up a piece of his body it was just a piece of fruit they called me fruit once too they called me fruity before they called me flaming before they called me faggot before they called me woman i thought i would have to hack this body into pieces woman, a name stuck in my throat right under the apple Adam tried to eat choked on it for years waited for my ribs to pop out my chest to explode for my Eve to be created from the fruit i couldn’t swallow they called me fruit once until they called me woman and then they just called me fruitless as if it took a womb to be progenitor creator mother of all things strength and fortitude and sadness they reckon God looked at the image of herself and called it Adam they still don’t call me woman they still don’t birth me Eve even though they cast me out my throat shrunken close with the fruit still stuck in it like Adam before they called him Eve and suddenly i am a stranger to Eden i am a stranger to this body as if it hadn’t always been mine i reckon God looked at the image of herself and called it me but i don’t know if that was before or after the apple before or after Adam choked which came first the progenitor or the mother the apple or the rib the strength or the sadness this body was God’s original creation but they called it sin they called it Adam I reckon God looked at the image of  herself and called Adam Eve after she choked on his name some fruit that bloomed in everyone else’s throat but she could never quite swallow the fall of man was an apple hacked up from a fruitless body a woman learning what evil was like a man forcing his name upon you the fall of man was a rib being torn from a chest and men calling that violence holy naming a woman based only on the body parts she’s made of the fall of man was the beginning of Eve Eve casting out Adam’s name Eve discovering who she was the progenitor the creator of all things the mother of strength and fortitude and sadness the fall of man was Eve becoming a woman with or without Eden’s approval and now every time someone tries to call her Adam tries to force the apple of his name down her throat she laughs she swallows she looks at God herself and she smiles

1 Imagine a big room of women doing anything, playing cards, having a meeting, the rattle of paper or coffee cups or chairs pushed back, the loud and quiet murmur of their voices, women leaning their heads together. If we leaned in at the door and I said, Those women are mothers,

All this time I've been looking for words for certain difficult women because they aren't able to speak for themselves, and now the Clinton Foundation has come up with a brilliant campaign—they decided, for International Women's Day, through digital magic to erase women on the cover of Condé Nast, posters, billboards, those figures replaced by empty space because women have not yet achieved gender equity, as noted on a website, not-there.org, and they're right. We haven't. But when I read about not-there.org and saw its flashy graphics, I wasn't thinking about how women are not-there-yet, metaphorically, I just thought about women who are really not there, women and girls who keep disappearing (not from magazines, who don't make news in Manhattan) like they've evaporated, like illusions, hundreds in Juárez, twelve hundred missing and murdered Native women across Canada. The hands of men. Now you see her. Not. Not-there. Not here, either, or anywhere. Maybe only part of the problem is the predatory perpetrator- prestidigitator who more often than not knows her, knows how to keep her quiet, who may claim to love her, even, maybe getting even—or the serial rapist-killer in the bushes who bushwhacks her in the dark. You're always safe, says the forensic psychiatrist, unless a monster happens to show up, and then you're not. Not-there. Maybe a lonely mandible, maxilla, fibula, or ulna shows up, or a bagged body gets dragged from the river. Or not. Is this the value we permit a woman's life to have (or not-have) throughout a wrong world, a global idea of her as disposable parts? In the end, this is not a xenophobic poem, not specific—it's everywhere. Not-there. Right here. Yes, the sun rises anyway, but now the parents are staring past each other, that zero between them like a chalked outline in their family photograph. Or not.