Tag Archive for "poetry"

Posts Tagged poetry

“Women in my family have been shrinking for decades”

Start your morning with this breathtaking poem by Lily Myers of Wesleyan University. It will wake you the fuck up, in more ways than one.

Transcript below the jump.

Start your morning with this breathtaking poem by Lily Myers of Wesleyan University. It will wake you the fuck up, in more ways than one.

Transcript below the jump.

By Alexandra Brodsky • 11 years ago

Weekly Feminist Reader

Fully dressed superheroines are about questioning the genre, not imposing a moral code.

Kai M Green: “I will never straighten out my wrist.”

Hillary Clinton: Helping women isn’t just a “nice” thing to do.

Speaking of which, check out Politico on Hillary Clinton Fever.

The New York Times reports on the NYPD’s policing of trans people of color.

Muslimah Pride, FEMEN, and feminism as self-determination.

Keyword research on retail sites has a lot to tell us about gender and “neutral” defaults.

The Crunk Feminist Collective interviews Kathryn Buford of Live Unchained.

“My culture not outfit” campaign launches against cultural appropriation in fashion.

The idea of the “bikini body”

Fully dressed superheroines are about questioning the genre, not imposing a moral code.

Kai M Green: “I will never straighten out my wrist.”

Hillary Clinton: Helping women isn’t just a “nice” thing ...

By Alexandra Brodsky • 11 years ago

Happy Birthday, Audre Lorde

Love is a word another kind of open—
As a diamond comes into a knot of flame
I am black because I come from the earth’s inside
Take my word for jewel in your open light.

(“Coal,” 1997)

The late activist, poet, novelist, and essayist Audre Lorde would have been 79 today. Celebrate her legacy by checking out her writing. You can find much of her poetry and prose online, and listening to recordings of her public readings is a real, radical, beautiful joy.

Love is a word another kind of open—
As a diamond comes into a knot of flame
I am black because I come from the earth’s inside
Take my word for jewel in your open ...

By zerlina • 11 years ago

Obama taps gay Latino poet for 2nd inauguration

Sometimes good news comes with bad news. First the bad, which is the rather disappointing news that an anti-gay preacher will give the benediction at President Obama’s 2nd inauguration. Back in the mid-1990s Pastor Louie Giglio promoted that ex-gay therapy nonsense and railed against homosexuality in sermons. You would think after Pastor Rick Warren, the inaugural committee wouldn’t want to put anti-gay preachers next to the president who is now on record as a supporter of marriage equality. But hey, what do I know and I’m not on the committee.

Now for the good news! Richard Blanco, a gay Latino poet, will read at the president’s second inauguration on January 21st. Blanco will be the youngest poet to read ...

By Laura • 12 years ago

Paper-mache Princess.

Work starts at nine.
Not enough light to blend this illusion,
Not enough time.

I blend just enough to be effortless,
But not so much that I’m revealed.
My pale skin hiding beneath the layers,
Waiting to be accepted, not to be concealed.

I live as these other people,
Laminated, polished and frozen.
But somehow something tells me,
They’re really all broken.

They asked me at school what I would like to be,
Now I just want to be a celebrity.
The mask I won’t do without, it is my shield.
You’ll never get close enough for it to be healed.

Someone else’s hair has become glued to mine.
Stripped of all meaning, bleached of all desire.
Glowing layers of paint sprayed onto my ...

Work starts at nine.
Not enough light to blend this illusion,
Not enough time.

I blend just enough to be effortless,
But not so much that I’m revealed.
My pale skin hiding beneath the layers,
Waiting to be ...

By Chloe Angyal • 12 years ago

Step right up, job creators

Gwen Moore is a Democratic Congresswoman representing Wisconsin’s 4th congressional district, a staunch defender of reproductive freedom, a woman who school you if you try to couch your anti-choice views in faux-concern about “Black genocide,” and now, it seems, a poet. Here she is reading a poem of her own writing, called “Job Creators.”

Transcript below the jump.

h/t ThinkProgress

By Miriam • 12 years ago

Not Oprah’s Book Club: Love Cake

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha’s new book of poetry, Love Cake, is a delight to read. I have to admit I’m not a big poetry reader, but I’ve been a fan of Leah’s since I saw her during Mangos with Chili a few years ago. It’s her politics (from books like The Revolution Starts at Home) and subject matter that draw me to her writing, but in the end, the lyricism, the bold images and textured descriptions pulled me through the book with ease.

Leah leaves no subject matter unspoken, and talks about her life in ways that are so raw that they completely inspire. I particularly relate to her mentions of race, which permeate the book. Leah, born to ...

Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha’s new book of poetry, Love Cake, is a delight to read. I have to admit I’m not a big poetry reader, but I’ve been a fan of Leah’s since I saw her during ...

By Lori Adelman • 12 years ago

Google Honors Female Arab Poet

On Tuesday, Google celebrated the birthday of Nazik al-Malaika, a wonderful female poet, by honoring her with a “Google Doodle.” Al-Malaika was widely known in the Arab world. She passed away in June 2007.

Her obituary in the NY Times described her as “one of the Arab world’s most famous poets” and “one of a small group of Iraqi poets who broke away from classical Arab poetry, with its rigid metric and rhyme schemes.” It also illustrated how her poetry often dealt with women’s issues in brave and incredibly compelling ways, quoting from “To Wash Disgrace,” a poem about an honor killing:

Oh mother, a rattle, tears and darkness
Blood gushed out, and the stabbed ...

Her ...