It is Not Your Job by Caitlyn Siehl when your little girl asks you if she’s pretty your heart will drop like a wineglass on the hardwood floor part of you will want to say of course you are, don’t ever question it and the other part the part that is clawing at you will … Continue reading
Tagged with women poets …
Pregnant with Rapunzel by Laura King
Pregnant with Rapunzel by Laurie King I kept my mouth closed as I watched the ramps grow big and bitter. It was my daughter’s appetite that sprung the ferns along my throat, the fiddleheads of hunger that unfurled along my tongue like tongues. The window where we watched became our belfry, she the tongue and … Continue reading
On Responsibility to Yourself…
“Responsibility to yourself means refusing to let others do your thinking, talking, and naming for you…it means that you do not treat your body as a commodity with which to purchase superficial intimacy or economic security; for our bodies to be treated as objects, our minds are in mortal danger. It means insisting that those … Continue reading
New Emily Dickinson Portrait Discovered!
Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) remains one of the most powerful yet elusive poets of the 19th century. A new portrait has recently been discovered that could be only the second authenticated photograph of the writer, to date. To prove that the image is ‘the real McCoy’, experts have been brought in to compare samples from Amherst … Continue reading
Little Cinder by Jeannine Hall Gailey
Little Cinder by Jeannine Hall Gailey Girl, they can’t understand you. You rise from the ash–heap in a blaze and only then do they recognize you as their one true love. While you pray beneath your mother’s tree you carve a phoenix into your palm with a hazel twig and coal; every night she devours … Continue reading
Bone Mother by Holly Black
Bone Mother by Holly Black The daughter is too bold to be anything but a cuckoo in the nest. Good girls sit home and sew in the dark. They don’t go seeking fire in the witch’s woods. A rider, his horse black as cooked blood leads her to the house. There, she learns to part … Continue reading
Advice from a Caterpillar by Amy Gerstler
Advice from a Caterpillar by Amy Gerstler Chew your way into a new world. Munch leaves. Molt. Rest. Molt again. Self-reinvention is everything. Spin many nests. Cultivate stinging bristles. Don’t get sentimental about your discarded skins. Grow quickly. Develop a yen for nettles. Alternate crumpling and climbing. Rely on your antennae. Sequester poisons in your … Continue reading