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POETRY

ت

I Am A Feminist

I am a feminist.

What does that mean?

It means a concern

for all women

and for all issues

that affect women.

The physical abuse that many of us have suffered from rapists or battering mates.

The psychological abuse that women endure from

their husbands, boyfriends, employers and sometimes from each other.

The Insecurity of being defined and limited

by one's gender.

The lack of confidence

and skills development and feeling of control over one's life and destiny that has characterized

women in our society. The love of women in their incredible strength, sensitivity

and development of awareness of themselves and others.

The fantastic power of women who have released themselves, at least to some degree

from their chains,

who have challenged what is

and demand that changes occur,

CHS

I Feel Deep

I feel deep

a song unsung

a dance to be done

a poem needing creation.

Steel grips binding my heart

weighted balls pressing my mind my soul thirsting to be loosened.

What madness within what unsatiable desires Could it be love untouched beauty unspoken of

Walking life's pathway

hiding my guts

sssh tip toe pass

tip toe quietly by

hear the world sigh.

Oh to reach within and pull them off

stopping the butterflies flitting

in my stomach

bobbing in my soul

wanting to burst through

Instead, folding into a cocoon.

-Nancy V.

I am Inspired.

I look around my life-scarred haven,

see the time-worn walls,

the decaying wood beneath slowly slanting tiles. I step onto my cubicle of a porch,

view the treetops at eyelevel, and I am inspired.

I am inspired by my dark brothers of the past

my black sisters of old, whose feeble fingers,

whose frail vocals, strove to expose

minds, ignited in flames of thought,

hearts, alive with feelings of life,

souls, incensed with desirous truth,

as gnawing pangs of destiny attacked in clarity.

I taste clay oozing through bronze fingers

of Edinonia Lewis, smoothing and shaping ancient sculpted miracles.

I smell the oils of hoary brushes swirling

in the dark hands of Joshua Johnston, G. W. Hobbs, Meta Warrick Fuller, May Howard Jackson, invading the nostrils with odorous, enduring landscapes, portraits, pastels.

I hear the ebonic echoed vocals of Emma Lewis Hyers, Wallace King, Nellie Brown, Marie Selika, Anna Hyers, Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield, struggling toward fame in hot dusty quarters.

The rippling of a keyboard can be heard as

Richard Lambert, Tom Fletcher, Rachel Washington, Lucien Lambert, engross in the creation of symphonic concertos in shadowy ruinous cabins.

In bed in the dark listening to the wind attack the rafters above, scratching quills of Fenton Johnson, Jean Tanner, Alice Johnson, Claude McKay, William Stanley Braithwaite, can be heard. The creak of age is felt in the shaking roof overhead, but I dissolve into a slumberous state, as Langston Hughes whispers in my ear, “Life for me ain't been no crystal stair."

An observation from a northern Wisconsin resort town:

It is a sad and telling statement of our sexist society,

to look across a mass of people crowded into an ice-cream shop, and to see a female infant wearing a tiny bikini "bra" around her narrow little chest. She is barely two months old, stili nee-natal and hardly able to hold up her wobbly head.

It is even sadder to realize this particular girl baby has been marked and in even more subtle ways, to grow into a crippled half-person. Poor baby. Poor female. She is only one female baby among many; there are hundreds of pretend-miniature-breasted girl babies wearing bikini bras, all of them trying to hold up their little wobbly heads, in summer resort towns all across this nation.

-Catherine Claytor-Becker Moving Out, Wayne State University

-Nancy V.

who have been catalysts

for constructive change.

-Barbara Lombardo

1972

October, 1979/What She Wants/Page 7