111 Gender and feminism poems

I am Minerva, the village poetess, Hooted at, jeered at by the Yahoos of the street For my heavy body, cock-eye, and rolling walk, And all the more when “Butch” Weldy Captured me after a brutal hunt. He left me to my fate with Doctor Meyers; And I sank into death, growing numb from the feet up, Like one stepping deeper and deeper into a stream of ice. Will some one go to the village newspaper, And gather into a book the verses I wrote?— I thirsted so for love I hungered so for life!

Miss Scarlett, effen we kain git de doctah w’en Miss Melly’s time come, doan you bodder Ah kin manage. Ah knows all ’bout birthin. Ain’ mah ma a midwife? Ain’ she raise me ter be a midwife, too? Jes’ you leave it ter me. She warn’t dar. Well’m, Dey Cookie say Miss Meade done got wud early dis mawnin’ dat young Mist’ Phil done been shot an’ Miss Meade she tuck de cah’ige an’ Ole Talbot an’ Besty an’ dey done gone ter fotch him home. Cookie say he bad hurt an’ Miss Meade ain’ gwin ter be studyin’ ’bout comin’ up hyah. Dey ain’ dar, Miss Scarlett. Ah drapped in ter pass time of de day wid Mammy on mah way home. Dey’s doen gone. House all locked up. Spec dey’s at de horsepittle. Miss Elsing ober at de horsepittle. Dey Cookie ’lows a whole lot of wounded sojers come in on de early train. Cookie fixin’ soup ter tek over dar. She say—Yas’m Gawdlmighty, Miss Scarlett! De Yankees ain’ at Tara, s dey? Gawdlmighty, Miss Scarlett! Whut’ll dey do ter Maw? Dey’s fightin’ at Jonesboro, Miss Scarlett! Dey say our gempumus is gittin’ beat. Oh, Gawd, Miss Scarlett! Whut’ll happen ter Maw an’ Poke? Oh, Gawd, Miss Scarlett! Whut’ll happen ter us effen de Yankees gits hyah? Oh, Gawd—Ah ain’ nebber seed him, Miss Scarlett. No’m, he ain’ at de horsepittle. Miss Merriwether an’ Miss Elsing ain’ dar needer. A man he tole me de doctah down by de car shed wid the wounded sojers jes’ come in frum Jonesboro, but Miss Scarlett, Ah wuz sceered ter go down dar ter de shed—dey’s folkses dyin’ down dar. Ah’s sceered of daid folkses—Miss Scarlett, fo’ Gawd, Ah couldn’ sceercely git one of dem ter read yo’ note. Dey wukin’ in de horsepittle lak dey all done gone crazy. One doctah he say ter me, “Damn yo’ hide! Doan you come roun’ hyah bodderi’ me ’bout babies w’en we got a mess of men dyin’ hyah. Git some woman ter he’p you.” An’ den Ah went aroun’ an’ about an’ ask fer news lak you done tole me an’ dey all say “fightin’ at Jonesboro” an’ Ah— Is her time nigh, Miss Scarlett? Is de doctah come? Gawd, Miss Scarlett! Miss Melly bad off! Fo’ Gawd, Miss Scarlett— Fo’ Gawd, Miss Scarlett! We’s got ter have a doctah. Ah—Ah— Miss Scarlett, Ah doan know nutin’ ‘bout bringin’ babies.

(After Kipling) When the traveller in the pasture meets the he-bull in his pride, He shouts to scare the monster, who will often turn aside; But the milch cow, thus accosted, pins the traveller to the rail -- For the female of the species is deadlier than the male. When Nag, the raging stallion, meets a careless man on foot, He will sometimes not destroy him, even if the man don’t shoot; But the mare, if he should meet one, makes the bravest cowboy pale -- For the female of the species is more deadly than the male. When our first colonial settlers met the Hurons and Choctaws, They were burned and scalped and slaughtered by the fury-breathing squaws; ‘Twas the women, not the warriors, who in war-paint took the trail -- For the female of the species is more deadly than the male. Man’s timid heart is bursting with the things he must not say As to women, lest in speaking he should give himself away; But when he meets a woman -- see him tremble and turn pale -- For the female of the species is more deadly than the male Lay your money on the hen-fight! On the dog-fight fought by shes! On the gory Ladies Prize-fight -- there are none so fierce as these! See small girls each other pounding, while their peaceful brothers wail -- For the female of the species is more deadly than the male. So in history they tell us how all China shrieked and ran Before the wholesale slaughter dealt by Mrs. Genghis Khan. And Attila, the Scourge of God, who made all Europe quail, Was a female of the species and more deadly than the male. Red war with all its million dead is due to female rage, The names of women murderers monopolize the page, The pranks of a Napoleon are nothing to the tale Of destruction wrought by females, far more deadly than the male. In the baleful female infant this ferocity we spy, It glares in bloodshot fury from the maiden’s dewy eye, But the really deadly female, when you see her at her best, Has two babies at her petticoat and a suckling at her breast. Yet hold! there is Another! A monster even worse! The Terror of Humanity! Creation’s direst curse! Before whom men in thousands must tremble, shrink and fail -- A sanguinary Grandma -- more deadly than the male!

Dear sir, your air of authority leaves me lost. Eases me from a place of ease. Contracts with my contradictions to take from me a place. Autopilots my autobiography. Frightens my fright. Sighs with my breath. Wins at my race. Your certainty has me curtained. Your nerve has me nervous. Your childhood has me childlike and your nastiness nests in my belfry like a hawk. You are beyond and above my slice of sky, peach as a pie, bourbon as its pit. You are spit and vinegar while I sour in my bowl. You bowl me over while I tread lightly on my feet. You walk on water while I sink. You witness me, fisherman, boat on the lake, while I struggle and burble and brittle and drop. You wink at me and I must relate. I close my eyes to erase you and you are written in my lids. A litmus test. A form of lair. God with three days of facial growth and an old bouquet for a face. Soap and water for a brain. I have no handsome answer. I have no pillar of salt or shoulder to look over. I have no feather to weigh. I have no bubble to burst. I am less to myself, a character in a drama, a drumbeat, a benevolence, a blight. All parts of me say shoot on sight. Aim for an artery or organ. Good night.

I would have been as great as George Eliot But for an untoward fate. For look at the photograph of me made by Peniwit, Chin resting on hand, and deep-set eyes i Gray, too, and far-searching. But there was the old, old problem: Should it be celibacy, matrimony or unchastity? Then John Slack, the rich druggist, wooed me, Luring me with the promise of leisure for my novel, And I married him, giving birth to eight children, And had no time to write. It was all over with me, anyway, When I ran the needle in my hand While washing the baby's things, And died from lock-jaw, an ironical death. Hear me, ambitious souls, Sex is the curse of life!

From over the wall I could hear the laughter of women in a foreign tongue, in the sun-rinsed air of the city. They sat (so I thought) perfumed in their hats and their silks, in chairs on the grass amid flowers glowing and swaying. One spoke and the others rang like bells, oh so witty, like bells till the sound filled up the garden and lifted like bubbles spilling over the bricks that enclosed them, their happiness holding them, even if just for the moment. Although I did not understand a word they were saying, their sound surrounded me, fell on my shoulders and hair, and burst on my cheeks like kisses, and continued to fall, holding me there where I stood on the sidewalk listening. As I could not move, I had to hear them grow silent, and adjust myself to the clouds and the cooling air. The mumble of thunder rumbled out of the wall and the smacking of drops as the rain fell everywhere.

The famous Polish poet calls Simone de Beauvoir a Nazi hag but to me she will always be her famous book, the one with the Matisse paper cut on the cover, a sad blue nude I took into the woods. Where we college girls went to coax the big picture from her, as if she could tell us how to use all the strange blades on our Swiss Army knives— the firewood we arranged in either log cabin or tepee, a little house built to be burned down. Which could be a metaphor: Simone as the wind puffing the damp flames, a cloud with a mouth that became obsolete once we started using gasoline. Still, she gave me one lesson that sticks, which is: do not take a paperback camping in the rain or it may swell to many times its original size, and if you start with a big book you’ll end up with a cinderblock. In that vein I pictured Simone as huge until (much later) I read that her size was near-midget— imagine, if we took Gertrude Stein, we’d be there still, trying to build some kind of travois to drag her body out. The other thing I remember, a word,immanence— meaning, you get stuck with the cooking and laundry while the man gets to hit on all your friends in Paris. Sure you can put the wet book in the oven and try baking it like a cake. But the seam will stay soggy even when the pages rise, ruffled like French pastry. As far as laundry goes, it’s best I steer clear, what with my tendency to forget the tissues wadded in my sleeves. What happens is I think I’m being so careful, and everything still comes out like the clearing where we woke. Covered in flakes that were then the real thing: snow. Which sounds more la-di-da in French. But then the sun came up and all la neige vanished like those chapters we grew bored with and had skipped.

I. PLACE. —A small alcove with dark curtains. The class consists of one member. SUBJECT.—Thomson’s Mirror Galvanometer.

— After Catullus My house disgusted me, so I slept in a tent. My tent disgusted me, so I slept in the grass. The grass disgusted me, so I slept in my body, which I strung like a hammock from two ropes. My body disgusted me, so I carved myself out of it. My use of knives disgusted me because it was an act of violence. My weakness disgusted me because “Hannah” means “hammer.” The meaning of my name disgusted me because I’d rather be known as beautiful. My vanity disgusted me because I am a scholar. My scholarship disgusted me because knowledge is empty. My emptiness disgusted me because I wanted to be whole. My wholeness would have disgusted me because to be whole is to be smug. Still, I tried to understand wholeness as the inclusiveness of all activities: I walked out into the yard, trying to vomit and drink milk simultaneously. I tried to sleep while smoking a cigar. I have enough regrets to crack all the plumbing. I’m whole only in that I’ve built my person from every thought I’ve ever loved.

(With apologies to Mr. Rudyard Kipling) If you can dress to make yourself attractive, Yet not make puffs and curls your chief delight; If you can swim and row, be strong and active, But of the gentler graces lose not sight; If you can dance without a craze for dancing, Play without giving play too strong a hold, Enjoy the love of friends without romancing, Care for the weak, the friendless and the old; If you can master French and Greek and Latin, And not acquire, as well, a priggish mien, If you can feel the touch of silk and satin Without despising calico and jean; If you can ply a saw and use a hammer, Can do a man’s work when the need occurs, Can sing when asked, without excuse or stammer, Can rise above unfriendly snubs and slurs; If you can make good bread as well as fudges, Can sew with skill and have an eye for dust, If you can be a friend and hold no grudges, A girl whom all will love because they must; If sometime you should meet and love another And make a home with faith and peace enshrined, And you its soul—a loyal wife and mother— You’ll work out pretty nearly to my mind The plan that’s been developed through the ages, And win the best that life can have in store, You’ll be, my girl, the model for the sages— A woman whom the world will bow before.