Tag Archives: feminism

Untitled by Pamela Sneed

Posted on by
Reply

generally I try hard

Not to lose my temper

Even when people piss me off and do mean or shady things I’ll barely respond

But I once taught a class full of guys

All cis hetero that challenged every word I said

Smirked when I tried to give feedback and instructions

They banded together in their disrespect

Then they were all absent going to the protests to stop the genocide in Gaza

One wrote, I encourage you to bring our colleagues during this historic moment

Pamela Sneed

Pamela Sneed is a poet, writer, visual artist, and spoken word & musical performer (Big Mama Thornton). She is the author of Funeral Diva (2020), Imagine Being More Afraid of Freedom than Slavery (1998) and many more. She is a painter, a political artist, and an assemblage and collage artist.
Teaching: She teaches online for the low-residency MFA program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is a visiting artist in the summer MFA program. She is an adjunct assistant professor at the Columbia University School of the Arts.

https://publictheater.org/productions/joes-pub/2024/p/pamela-sneed/

https://www.mrqd.org/events-2024/sneed

Laurie Uttich poem on domestic violence and support from women*

Posted on by
Reply

Laurie Uttich

TO MY STUDENT WITH THE DIME-SIZED BRUISES ON THE BACK OF HER ARMS WHO’S STILL ON HER CELLPHONE

Oh honey, you can text him, you can like his meme, you can 

follow him on Twitter and to Target, you can ride shotgun, hold 

his anger on your lap, pet his pride, be his ride or die. You can 

wear those jeans he likes. You can discover Victoria’s 

secret, buy a bra with a mind of its own. You can 

recite I’m sorry like it’s a Bible verse and Snapchat the shit out 

of those purple roses he bought you at Publix. You can try 

every one of Cosmo’s 30 Ways to Give an Ultimate Blowjob. 

You can remember the name of his mother, his best friend 

in 2nd grade, the lunchroom lady who gave him extra 

chicken strips on Tuesdays. You can grow out your bangs, toss 

your hometown over your shoulder, sleep facing north 

with your cheek in his back. 

You can strip yourself for parts.        But, baby, 

it still won’t be enough. You can love him, but you can’t pull 

his story out of the dark and slide your arms into it. You can’t 

wash it and lay it flat in the sun to soften. You can’t 

hold his face in both of your palms and watch tomorrow 

bloom from the sheer wanting and waiting of it. It doesn’t 

matter if his daddy talked with his hands        or his bloodline 

is marinated in booze        or his mama loved his brother best. 

You can’t fix what somebody else broke. 

So, girl, put down your phone and pick up 

your pen. Take a piece of the dark and put it on a page. 

Sylvia Plath waits to wash your feet. And look, 

Virginia Woolf has built you another room and painted 

it pink. There’s a place for you at the table. Sit next to me; 

I got here late.        Oh, baby, don’t you feel it? You were knit 

for wonder in your mother’s womb. 

You were born for the driver’s seat.

—from Rattle #69, Fall 2020
Tribute to Service Workers

https://www.laurieuttich.com/ is the website of author Laurie Uttich. You can buy her poetry here: https://riotinyourthroat.com/product/somewhere-a-woman-lowers-the-hem-of-her-skirt-by-laurie-rachkus-uttich/

And follow her on instagram https://www.instagram.com/laurieuttich/

Another poem on rattle.com https://www.rattle.com/my-88-year-old-mother-in-law-decides-to-make-new-years-resolutions-by-laurie-uttich/

How to burn a woman

Posted on by
Reply

Claire Askew

You will not need kindling.
I think I’ll go up quick
as summer timber, my anger
big and dry as a plantation
that dreams of being paper:
the updraft already made
in the canopy, and heading down.

Bring your axe to split me
into parts that you can stack
over the dry leaves, over the coals:
my old coat and my bedding box,
the things given to me by women.
You’ve heard of spontaneous human
combustion. They say it’s fat:
once lit, it flares so white-hot fast
the bones give in.
Make your touch-paper long.

Spread the word that the crowd
who will gather should stand
well back. I am coated
in the accelerant of men:
my craving for their good necks,
their bodies in button-downs
crisp as a new book.

As you douse the embers
I will smell like ground elder
choking the cemetery —
roots looping up
out of dead women’s mouths,
a problem thing
you’ll never get cleared.

Make the stake thick, the bonds
stiff on my innocent wrists.
Burn me the same way
you burned her: do it
because we took the plain
thoughts from our own heads
into the square, and spoke.

From How to burn a woman (pub. Bloodaxe, 2021)

After the horrendous anti-women hatred from Donald and his cult and anyone who voted for him, this poem is raw and fits perfectly in this evening of motors revving dying away and leafs smacking the window.

Akua Lezli Hope RESIGNATION Rattle.com

Posted on by
1

#iNeedFeminismBecause we need to rethink some of the systems in place for educating children. Too many schools are like this: chaos, stress, not understanding, falling behind, falling behind, falling behind, shame and instead we need to create a drive in kids to search for as many possible arguments, answers, questions, as their little heart and body can take -and for them to have joy doing this.

Akua Lezli Hope

RESIGNATION

I cannot justify making students cry,
the disorder is in the system.
Too small to span the keyboard, hands shake trying
behaviors far beyond them in the curriculum.
The disorder is in the system.
They cry with frustration. They must attempt
behaviors far beyond them in the curriculum,
scored on wildly inappropriate assessments.
They cry with frustration. They must attempt
poorly written tests. Their shoulders slump. Some misbehave.
Scored on wildly inappropriate assessments,
teachers are regimented, punished if they deviate.
Children hunt for letters they must attempt
but cannot read. Disorder is in the system.