To the Censorious Ones

Source: Favim 

(Jesse Helms & others...)

I'm coming up out of the tomb, Men of War

Just when you thought you had me down, in place, 

hidden

I'm coming up now

Can you feel the ground rumble under your feet?

It's breaking apart, it's turning over, it's pushing up

It's thrusting into your point of view, your private 

property

O Men of War, Censorious Ones!

get ready big boys get ready

I'm coming up now

I'm coming up with all that was hidden

Get ready, Big Boys, get ready

I'm coming up with all you wanted buried,

All the hermetic texts with stories in them of hot & 

dangerous women

Women with lascivious tongues, sharp eyes & claws

I've been working out, my muscles are strong

I'm pushing up the earth with all you try to censor

All the iconoclasm & bravado you scorn

All the taunts against your banner & salute

I'm coming up from Hell with all you ever suppressed

All the dark fantasies, all the dregs are coming back

I'm leading them back up now

They're going to bark & scoff & rage & bite

I'm opening the box

boo!

~ Anne Waldman

To the Censorious Ones

Source: Favim 

(Jesse Helms & others...)

I'm coming up out of the tomb, Men of War

Just when you thought you had me down, in place, 

hidden

I'm coming up now

Can you feel the ground rumble under your feet?

It's breaking apart, it's turning over, it's pushing up

It's thrusting into your point of view, your private 

property

O Men of War, Censorious Ones!

get ready big boys get ready

I'm coming up now

I'm coming up with all that was hidden

Get ready, Big Boys, get ready

I'm coming up with all you wanted buried,

All the hermetic texts with stories in them of hot & 

dangerous women

Women with lascivious tongues, sharp eyes & claws

I've been working out, my muscles are strong

I'm pushing up the earth with all you try to censor

All the iconoclasm & bravado you scorn

All the taunts against your banner & salute

I'm coming up from Hell with all you ever suppressed

All the dark fantasies, all the dregs are coming back

I'm leading them back up now

They're going to bark & scoff & rage & bite

I'm opening the box

boo!

~ Anne Waldman

That Country

Grace Paley (Image Credit: Bitch Media)

This is about the women of that country

Sometimes they spoke in slogans

They said

       We patch the roads as we patch our sweetheart’s trousers   

       The heart will stop but not the transport

They said

       We have ensured production even near bomb craters   

       Children let your voices sing higher than the explosions

                                                    of the bombs

They said

       We have important tasks to teach the children

       that the people are the collective masters

       to bear hardship

       to instill love in the family

       to guide the good health of the children (they must

       wear clothing according to climate)

They said

       Once men beat their wives

       now they may not

       Once a poor family sold its daughter to a rich old man   

       now the young may love one another

They said

       Once we planted our rice any old way

       now we plant the young shoots in straight rows

       so the imperialist pilot can see how steady our

       hands are

In the evening we walked along the shores of the Lake   

                                                of the Restored Sword

I said   is it true?   we are sisters?   

They said   Yes, we are of one family

~ Grace Paley

That Country

Grace Paley (Image Credit: Bitch Media)

This is about the women of that country

Sometimes they spoke in slogans

They said

       We patch the roads as we patch our sweetheart’s trousers   

       The heart will stop but not the transport

They said

       We have ensured production even near bomb craters   

       Children let your voices sing higher than the explosions

                                                    of the bombs

They said

       We have important tasks to teach the children

       that the people are the collective masters

       to bear hardship

       to instill love in the family

       to guide the good health of the children (they must

       wear clothing according to climate)

They said

       Once men beat their wives

       now they may not

       Once a poor family sold its daughter to a rich old man   

       now the young may love one another

They said

       Once we planted our rice any old way

       now we plant the young shoots in straight rows

       so the imperialist pilot can see how steady our

       hands are

In the evening we walked along the shores of the Lake   

                                                of the Restored Sword

I said   is it true?   we are sisters?   

They said   Yes, we are of one family

~ Grace Paley

Advice

Source: Favim

So my unsolicited advice to women in the workplace is this. When faced with sexism or ageism or lookism or even really aggressive Buddhism, ask yourself the following question: “Is this person in between me and what I want to do?” If the answer is no, ignore it and move on. Your energy is better used doing your work and outpacing people that way. Then, when you’re in charge, don’t hire the people who were jerky to you.

If the answer is yes, you have a more difficult road ahead of you. I suggest you model your strategy after the old Sesame Street film piece “Over! Under! Through!” (If you’re under forty you might not remember this film. It taught the concepts of “over,” “under,” and “through” by filming toddlers crawling around an abandoned construction site. They don’t show it anymore because someone has since realized that’s nuts.)

If your boss is a jerk, try to find someone above or around your boss who is not a jerk.* If you’re lucky, your workplace will have a neutral proving ground--like the rifle range or the car sales total board or the SNL read-through. If so, focus on that.

Again, don’t waste your energy trying to educate or change opinions. Go “Over! Under! Through!” and opinions will change organically when you’re the boss. Or they won’t. Who cares? 

Do your thing and don’t care if they like it.

~ Tina Fey

Advice

Source: Favim

So my unsolicited advice to women in the workplace is this. When faced with sexism or ageism or lookism or even really aggressive Buddhism, ask yourself the following question: “Is this person in between me and what I want to do?” If the answer is no, ignore it and move on. Your energy is better used doing your work and outpacing people that way. Then, when you’re in charge, don’t hire the people who were jerky to you.

If the answer is yes, you have a more difficult road ahead of you. I suggest you model your strategy after the old Sesame Street film piece “Over! Under! Through!” (If you’re under forty you might not remember this film. It taught the concepts of “over,” “under,” and “through” by filming toddlers crawling around an abandoned construction site. They don’t show it anymore because someone has since realized that’s nuts.)

If your boss is a jerk, try to find someone above or around your boss who is not a jerk.* If you’re lucky, your workplace will have a neutral proving ground--like the rifle range or the car sales total board or the SNL read-through. If so, focus on that.

Again, don’t waste your energy trying to educate or change opinions. Go “Over! Under! Through!” and opinions will change organically when you’re the boss. Or they won’t. Who cares? 

Do your thing and don’t care if they like it.

~ Tina Fey

Quote: Knowledge of the world

Source: Tumblr/Favim

There is a thing called knowledge of the world, which people do not have until they are middle-aged. It is something which cannot be taught to younger people, because it is not logical and does not obey laws which are constant. It has no rules. Only, in the long years which bring women to the middle of life, a sense of balance develops…when she is beginning to hate her used body, she suddenly finds that she can do it. She can go on living…

~ T. H. White

Quote: Knowledge of the world

Source: Tumblr/Favim

There is a thing called knowledge of the world, which people do not have until they are middle-aged. It is something which cannot be taught to younger people, because it is not logical and does not obey laws which are constant. It has no rules. Only, in the long years which bring women to the middle of life, a sense of balance develops…when she is beginning to hate her used body, she suddenly finds that she can do it. She can go on living…

~ T. H. White

The Marvelous Women

Source: hindustan times 

All women speak two languages:

the language of men

and the language of silent suffering.

Some women speak a third,

the language of queens.

They are marvelous

and they are my friends.

My friends give me poetry.

If it were not for them

I’d be a seamstress out of work.

They send me their dresses

and I sew together poems,

enormous sails for ocean journeys.

My marvelous friends, these women

who are elegant and fix engines,

who teach gynecology and literacy,

and work in jails and sing and sculpt

and paint the ninety-nine names,

who keep each other’s secrets

and pass on each other’s spirits

 like small packets of leavening,

it is from you I fashion poetry.

I scoop up, in handfuls, glittering

sequins that fall from your bodies

as you fall in love, marry, divorce,

get custody, get cats, enter

supreme courts of justice,

argue with God.

You rescuers on galloping steeds

of the weak and the wounded–

Creatures of beauty and passion,

powerful workers in love–

you are the poems.

I am only your stenographer.

I am the hungry transcriber

of the conjuring recipes you hoard

in the chests of your great-grandmothers.

My marvelous friends–the women

of brilliance in my life,

who levitate my daughters,

you are a coat of many colors

in silk tie-dye so gossamer

it can be crumpled in one hand.

You houris, you mermaids, swimmers

 in dangerous waters, defiers of sharks–

My marvelous friends,

thirsty Hagars and laughing Sarahs,

you eloquent radio Aishas,

Marys drinking the secret

milkshakes of heaven,

slinky Zuleikas of desire,

gay Walladas, Harriets

parting the sea, Esthers in the palace,

Penelopes of patient scheming,

you are the last hope of the shrinking women.

You are the last hand to the fallen knights

You are the only epics left in the world

Come with me, come with poetry

Jump on this wild chariot, hurry–

~ Mohja Kahf

The Marvelous Women

Source: hindustan times 

All women speak two languages:

the language of men

and the language of silent suffering.

Some women speak a third,

the language of queens.

They are marvelous

and they are my friends.

My friends give me poetry.

If it were not for them

I’d be a seamstress out of work.

They send me their dresses

and I sew together poems,

enormous sails for ocean journeys.

My marvelous friends, these women

who are elegant and fix engines,

who teach gynecology and literacy,

and work in jails and sing and sculpt

and paint the ninety-nine names,

who keep each other’s secrets

and pass on each other’s spirits

 like small packets of leavening,

it is from you I fashion poetry.

I scoop up, in handfuls, glittering

sequins that fall from your bodies

as you fall in love, marry, divorce,

get custody, get cats, enter

supreme courts of justice,

argue with God.

You rescuers on galloping steeds

of the weak and the wounded–

Creatures of beauty and passion,

powerful workers in love–

you are the poems.

I am only your stenographer.

I am the hungry transcriber

of the conjuring recipes you hoard

in the chests of your great-grandmothers.

My marvelous friends–the women

of brilliance in my life,

who levitate my daughters,

you are a coat of many colors

in silk tie-dye so gossamer

it can be crumpled in one hand.

You houris, you mermaids, swimmers

 in dangerous waters, defiers of sharks–

My marvelous friends,

thirsty Hagars and laughing Sarahs,

you eloquent radio Aishas,

Marys drinking the secret

milkshakes of heaven,

slinky Zuleikas of desire,

gay Walladas, Harriets

parting the sea, Esthers in the palace,

Penelopes of patient scheming,

you are the last hope of the shrinking women.

You are the last hand to the fallen knights

You are the only epics left in the world

Come with me, come with poetry

Jump on this wild chariot, hurry–

~ Mohja Kahf

Wonder Woman

Source: Unknown/Favim

Sometimes I see reflections on bits of glass on sidewalks
I catch the glimmer of empty bottles floating out to sea
Sometimes I stretch my arms way above my head and wonder if
There are women along the Mekong doing the same

Sometimes I state longingly at women who I will never know
Generous, laughing women with wrinkled cheeks and white teeth
Dragging along chubby, rosy-cheeked babies on fat, wobbly legs
sometimes I state at Chinese grandmothers
Getting on the 30  Stockton with shipping bags
Japanese women tourists in European hats
Middle-aged mothers with laundry carts
Young wives holding hands with their husbands
lesbian women holding hands in coffee-houses
Smiling debutantes with bouquets of yellow daffodils
Silver-haired matrons with silver rhinestoned poodles
Painted prostitutes posing along MacArthur boulevard
Giddy teenage girls snapping gum in fast cars
Widows clutching bibles, crucifixes

I look at them and wonder if
They are a part of me
I look in their eyes and wonder if
They share my dreams

I wonder if the woman in mink is content
If the stockbroker’s wife is afraid of growing old
If the professor’s wife is an alcoholic
If the woman in prison is me

There are copper-tanned women in Hyannis port playing tennis
Women who eat with finger bowls
There are women in factories punching time clocks
Women tired every waking hour of the day

I wonder why there are women born with silver-spoons in their mouths
women who have never known a day of hunger
Women who have never changed their own bed linens
And I wonder why there are women who must work
Women who must clean other women’s houses
Women who must shell shrimps for pennies a day
Women who must sew other women’s clothes
Who must cook
Who must die
In childbirth
In dreams

Why must women stand divided?
Building the walls that tear them down?
Jill-of-all-trades
Lover, mother, housewife, friend, breadwinner
Heart and spade
A woman is a ritual
A house that must accommodate
A house that must endure
Generation after generation
Of wind and torment, of fire and rain
A house with echoing rooms
Closets with hidden cries
Walls with stretchmarks
Windows with eyes

Short, tall, skinny, fat
Pregnant, married, white, yellow, black, brown, red
Professional, working-class, aristocrat
Women cooking over coals in sampans
Women shining tiffany spoons in glass houses
Women stretching their arms way above the clouds
In Samarkand, in San Francisco
Along the Mekong

~ Genny Lim

Wonder Woman

Source: Unknown/Favim

Sometimes I see reflections on bits of glass on sidewalks
I catch the glimmer of empty bottles floating out to sea
Sometimes I stretch my arms way above my head and wonder if
There are women along the Mekong doing the same

Sometimes I state longingly at women who I will never know
Generous, laughing women with wrinkled cheeks and white teeth
Dragging along chubby, rosy-cheeked babies on fat, wobbly legs
sometimes I state at Chinese grandmothers
Getting on the 30  Stockton with shipping bags
Japanese women tourists in European hats
Middle-aged mothers with laundry carts
Young wives holding hands with their husbands
lesbian women holding hands in coffee-houses
Smiling debutantes with bouquets of yellow daffodils
Silver-haired matrons with silver rhinestoned poodles
Painted prostitutes posing along MacArthur boulevard
Giddy teenage girls snapping gum in fast cars
Widows clutching bibles, crucifixes

I look at them and wonder if
They are a part of me
I look in their eyes and wonder if
They share my dreams

I wonder if the woman in mink is content
If the stockbroker’s wife is afraid of growing old
If the professor’s wife is an alcoholic
If the woman in prison is me

There are copper-tanned women in Hyannis port playing tennis
Women who eat with finger bowls
There are women in factories punching time clocks
Women tired every waking hour of the day

I wonder why there are women born with silver-spoons in their mouths
women who have never known a day of hunger
Women who have never changed their own bed linens
And I wonder why there are women who must work
Women who must clean other women’s houses
Women who must shell shrimps for pennies a day
Women who must sew other women’s clothes
Who must cook
Who must die
In childbirth
In dreams

Why must women stand divided?
Building the walls that tear them down?
Jill-of-all-trades
Lover, mother, housewife, friend, breadwinner
Heart and spade
A woman is a ritual
A house that must accommodate
A house that must endure
Generation after generation
Of wind and torment, of fire and rain
A house with echoing rooms
Closets with hidden cries
Walls with stretchmarks
Windows with eyes

Short, tall, skinny, fat
Pregnant, married, white, yellow, black, brown, red
Professional, working-class, aristocrat
Women cooking over coals in sampans
Women shining tiffany spoons in glass houses
Women stretching their arms way above the clouds
In Samarkand, in San Francisco
Along the Mekong

~ Genny Lim

Amber fields

Credit: Amber Fields of Grain by CarlaMia

a story quilt reading for L. Teresa Church

Rhubarb red streaks black nights.
Women walk amber fields down country roads,
Feet dusted tobacco brown.
Come home. Cook country ham, ground pepper.

Walk those amber fields, women.
Wrap in leopard prints spotted with sun.
Come, cook country ham, ground some pepper
Wipe the burgundy berry juice from my lips.

Wrapped in leopard prints spotted with sun,
Cotton-picked woven cloths, come, create wax batiks
With the burgundy berry juice—
Batiks from England, imported to motherland

For cotton-picked woven cloths. Wax batiks:
Kente, kente, emblem black, they want kente
Batiks from England to import to step-motherland,
Our banners fly from across the equator.

Kente, Kente, emblem black
Wrapped around women’s feet dusted tobacco brown
Who wear banners from across the equator
Where rhubarb red streaks those blackest nights.


~ DeLana Dameron

Amber fields

Credit: Amber Fields of Grain by CarlaMia

a story quilt reading for L. Teresa Church

Rhubarb red streaks black nights.
Women walk amber fields down country roads,
Feet dusted tobacco brown.
Come home. Cook country ham, ground pepper.

Walk those amber fields, women.
Wrap in leopard prints spotted with sun.
Come, cook country ham, ground some pepper
Wipe the burgundy berry juice from my lips.

Wrapped in leopard prints spotted with sun,
Cotton-picked woven cloths, come, create wax batiks
With the burgundy berry juice—
Batiks from England, imported to motherland

For cotton-picked woven cloths. Wax batiks:
Kente, kente, emblem black, they want kente
Batiks from England to import to step-motherland,
Our banners fly from across the equator.

Kente, Kente, emblem black
Wrapped around women’s feet dusted tobacco brown
Who wear banners from across the equator
Where rhubarb red streaks those blackest nights.


~ DeLana Dameron

Quote on difference between men and women

Source: Male and gemale @ amfAR

It was called evolutionary biology. Under its sway, the sexes were separated again, men into hunters and women into gatherers. Nurture no longer formed us; nature did. Impulses of hominids dating from 20,000 B.C. were still controlling us. And so today on television and in magazines you get the current simplifications.
Why can't men communicate? (Because they had to be quiet on the hunt.)
Why do women communicate so well? (Because they had to call out to one another where the fruits and berries were.)
Why can men never find things around the house? (Because they have a narrow field of vision, useful in tracking prey.)
Why can women find things so easily? (Because in protecting the nest they were used to scanning a wide field.)
Why can't women parallel-park? (Because low testosterone inhibits spatial ability.)
Why won't men ask for directions? (Because asking for directions is a sign of weakness, and hunters never show weakness.) 

This is where we are today. Men and women, tired of being the same, want to be different again.

~ Jeffrey Eugenides

Quote on difference between men and women

Source: Male and gemale @ amfAR

It was called evolutionary biology. Under its sway, the sexes were separated again, men into hunters and women into gatherers. Nurture no longer formed us; nature did. Impulses of hominids dating from 20,000 B.C. were still controlling us. And so today on television and in magazines you get the current simplifications.
Why can't men communicate? (Because they had to be quiet on the hunt.)
Why do women communicate so well? (Because they had to call out to one another where the fruits and berries were.)
Why can men never find things around the house? (Because they have a narrow field of vision, useful in tracking prey.)
Why can women find things so easily? (Because in protecting the nest they were used to scanning a wide field.)
Why can't women parallel-park? (Because low testosterone inhibits spatial ability.)
Why won't men ask for directions? (Because asking for directions is a sign of weakness, and hunters never show weakness.) 

This is where we are today. Men and women, tired of being the same, want to be different again.

~ Jeffrey Eugenides

Unholy Women

Source: Unknown/favim.com

 But of course these poems are

about men,

          which we become by defining how
we are not women

                               and
                                      
                                          so becoming

a shadow devouring the light to find the limits

          which is what Richard Pryor would have told Joan of Arc
in a joke funnier for being sexist

                     “It’s a man thang.”

And of course there is God

                     and its problematic relationship to light

not to mention the question
                                       
                                          of permission

                                Who builds the box, the shape?

It makes sense that Jesus, the new man 2,000 years ago

          was a carpenter.

You need that craft, the precision of measurement

                     angles of angels

who incidentally are never women.

          Just ask the Romans, who called them Angelo, Angelus

                     never Angela—

                     that lie was coined by a dissident nun hiding
her feminism under the cover of rapture

but

                     is it enough to announce yourself?
To beat your chest in contrition calling

          Mea culpa! Mea culpa?

Guilt can never be enough
          Mere intent—where is its purpose?

                     Yet there are no answers

there are only lines that disappear

          into horizons that girder us with safety

                     just as there is no way to end this poem.

~ Chris Abani

Unholy Women

Source: Unknown/favim.com

 But of course these poems are

about men,

          which we become by defining how
we are not women

                               and
                                      
                                          so becoming

a shadow devouring the light to find the limits

          which is what Richard Pryor would have told Joan of Arc
in a joke funnier for being sexist

                     “It’s a man thang.”

And of course there is God

                     and its problematic relationship to light

not to mention the question
                                       
                                          of permission

                                Who builds the box, the shape?

It makes sense that Jesus, the new man 2,000 years ago

          was a carpenter.

You need that craft, the precision of measurement

                     angles of angels

who incidentally are never women.

          Just ask the Romans, who called them Angelo, Angelus

                     never Angela—

                     that lie was coined by a dissident nun hiding
her feminism under the cover of rapture

but

                     is it enough to announce yourself?
To beat your chest in contrition calling

          Mea culpa! Mea culpa?

Guilt can never be enough
          Mere intent—where is its purpose?

                     Yet there are no answers

there are only lines that disappear

          into horizons that girder us with safety

                     just as there is no way to end this poem.

~ Chris Abani

Born Yesterday

Credit: PatriciaEGreen2@Morguefile

For Sally Amis

Tightly-folded bud,
I have wished you something
None of the others would:
Not the usual stuff
About being beautiful,
Or running off a spring
Of innocence and love —
They will all wish you that,
And should it prove possible,
Well, you’re a lucky girl.

But if it shouldn’t, then
May you be ordinary;
Have, like other women,
An average of talents:
Not ugly, not good-looking,
Nothing uncustomary
To pull you off your balance,
That, unworkable itself,
Stops all the rest from working.
In fact, may you be dull —
If that is what a skilled,
Vigilant, flexible,
Unemphasised, enthralled
Catching of happiness is called.

~ Philip Larkin

Born Yesterday

Credit: PatriciaEGreen2@Morguefile

For Sally Amis

Tightly-folded bud,
I have wished you something
None of the others would:
Not the usual stuff
About being beautiful,
Or running off a spring
Of innocence and love —
They will all wish you that,
And should it prove possible,
Well, you’re a lucky girl.

But if it shouldn’t, then
May you be ordinary;
Have, like other women,
An average of talents:
Not ugly, not good-looking,
Nothing uncustomary
To pull you off your balance,
That, unworkable itself,
Stops all the rest from working.
In fact, may you be dull —
If that is what a skilled,
Vigilant, flexible,
Unemphasised, enthralled
Catching of happiness is called.

~ Philip Larkin