Still Woman After All: Feminism in the Age of Proud Racism

 

My 4^th grade class, in lieu of a full-blown play, offered a selection of songs from Mary Poppins, probably in theaters on its first re-release in 1971. I had a wonderful light blue Granny Gown that I’d worn for Easter, and it fit perfectly with the time period. It even won me the task of handing out programs. The song that sticks most in my mind from that score is, “Sister Suffragette.” As with all Disney productions, it was a white-washed version of the actual struggle for women’s rights, leaving out the arrests and force feedings, but it did become an anthem of sorts for me. Even at nine, I was very aware of the inequities between the sexes. At the time, I believed I was in the majority in my community, and especially my middle-class school in the suburbs. But how far could a nine-year old get out into that community?

In 1974, “I Am Woman,” came out. It was the first single record I purchased, “Hear me roar,” sang out Helen Reddy, but I was anything but a roarer. Always a writer, my public speaking days were far off in the future. I began to use the prefix “Ms.” early on. That was my small roar. But I still had crushes on the most unlikely boys, still bought Ringo’s quirky remake, “You’re Sixteen,” not getting the creep factor then of a thirty-year old man lusting after teenagers. I  experimented with make-up, clothes when I could afford to, but I had no idea how to work with my early curves. I wore thick glasses which camouflaged a multitude of make-up sins, peacock greens, pearly purples muted behind the lenses. I did not know, and still don’t most days, what being a woman in American was supposed to look like. I still functioned under the illusion that we had more freedoms here. Now I’m not even sure what freedom means.

Ruth Bader Ginsberg grew up on another planet from mine. Brilliant, with an education that only multiplied her natural talents, she saw clearly what freedoms had been denied to women, and worked her whole career to change those restrictions. In 1971, when I was warbling on about suffragettes and kites in my small cafetorium, she was updating laws so that women like me could have their own credit cards, with their own names on them. When I left for college in 1980, it was brand-new territory for both me and my family, supportive yet trying to protect me with vague warnings about how it was still, “a man’s world.” I went on to explore this new world of college, and married young without much forethought. I managed to finish my degree in four years, but it would prove to be of no practical use on the job market. I graduated at 21 still without a driver’s license. I was in no way capable of managing a classroom.

I had a husband who berated me for ever wearing make-up, asking who I was, “getting dressed up for.” I kept my poems at work, after he’d ripped up some at our home. I got two black eyes for my troubles, and had even changed my name to his for a time, something I swore I wouldn’t do, but rationalized at the time that it made little difference. It made all the difference, I know now. I always used, “Ms.” but with my own identity all but erased, the prefix was powerless.

Ultimately I changed the course of my life, with help from a few key women. I took back my birth name, supported myself, moved and lived. I’ve got a rich history of friends, lovers, companions, jobs that would all make wonderful stories, if I live long enough to tell them. For the last twenty years, I have been settled with a man whose history nearly equals my own in drama and missteps. We are quiet observers for the most part. In this internet age, we travel via You Tube, saving ourselves the trouble of packing. We are adventurous in the kitchen, plagued no more by faux-vegan roommates or ramen budgets. We sleep well. He is my companion, but not my whole life. If he decided to go tomorrow, I would still have something here of my own.

I still strive for the equality of the sexes, and the races the genders. So much more has come to the surface. The Old Guard clings to the comforts of a black & white picture of an America that never really existed. Ozzie & Harriet met when his band needed a girl singer. Annette passed away after years of MS destroyed her once beautiful body. The President is a proud racist, and has followers empowered by his unchecked hate. But I still stand, shoulder to shoulder, with  others striving for equality, respect, opportunity, and security for all of us. Into the fray we go. I am still woman after all.

Second Prize Winner Alan Catlin!

 

A Journal of the Plague Year

 

"A crowd here wearing yellow ribbons is

crying for infants to be born."

Leslie Scalapino, The Front Matter, Dead Souls

 

Inside the painted city, double locked doors,

black crosses seared into the buckled paint,

yellow flags hanging from the masts of dormant

ships quarantined well beyond the harbor,

flotsam floating amidst the rainbow stained

garbage, the bloated heads of the diseased

slipped into the water under cover of darkness,

their candy apple eyes leaving wax impressions

on the skin of sleepers walking out of doors,

gauze contagion masks sucked inward covering

jagged teeth, soiled gowns bearing the marks

of inflated skins, tumors hard as fists

blackening the stilled night, powerless streets,

stricken power lines no longer sparking

in greasy puddles, mucal like burnt skin,

leaking oils on blacktop, concrete losing

definition, dissolving along with everything

else in the burning, hazing, mustard gas.

 

Alan Catlin has been publishing since the Seventies. In addition to more than sixty books and chapbooks of prose and poetry, he has won a number of national contests and awards. He has been a finalist for the Brittingham Book Prize from the University of Wisconsin Press, the Lena Miles Wever Poetry Book Award and been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, twenty times, in both fiction and poetry. Alan is one of the editors and founder of Misfit Magazine (misfitmagazine.net).

First Prize Winner Robert Milby!

 

Robert Milby of Florida, NY is a freelance writer who has been reading his poetry in the Hudson Valley, NYC, Long Island, NJ, PA, and New England since March, 1995. He’s given over 450 featured readings and has been onstage in front of poetry crowds over 1,500 times, including: featured readings, open mics, workshops, lectures, presentations, radio commentary, indoor & outdoor festivals, independent tv shows, etc. See more at https://robertmilbypoetry.com.

 

I Was Never Under Quarantine

In the haze of selling their future, several generations have forgotten

the bankers’ caste system.

I neither bowed to worship money, nor sang in corporate cages.

I was not sick, beyond disgust with modern sages;

psychic jails, and lockdowns— screwing planks in stages.

There were times that I was knocked down, but I was never under quarantine. 

 

State by state the white-out scent of cooking books,

without burning in a bonfire.

A source of bankers’ lies, on tiny screens and glowing monitors.

I never dressed in surgeon’s drag, walking through the streets,

where people clapped for nurses’ burkas or stared like dolts and preached.

There are times when I’m knocked down, but I am never under quarantine.

 

Without modesty, states stand in as teacher, mother, and father; techno gods of a new order.

I wandered field and forest; drove a city lane;

not once did cries of misery cause me bare-faced shame.

I never paid a jailer—I never bought the myths,

concocted by a dark regime, in estates of cards and sticks.

There were times when they knocked me down, but I was never under quarantine.

 

Entire countries are not hospitals, nor landscapers’ motor pools!

Fearful counties darkened churches; ignored the children, and locked their schools.

Lectured in public, by strangers, whose intents remain the same,

as past regimes’ deceptions in themes of costumed dramas.

We were never under quarantine, unless we gave consent:

Masked and gloved, cold penitents, or domestic spies, and dissidents.

2020 WILD WEST POETRY CONTEST WINNERS ANNOUNCED!!

 

 

 

 

Thanks to all for participating in what may become an annual tradition, the 2020 Wild West Poetry Contest! Following is the list of Winners and Honorable Mentions, as whimsically and with gut instinct were selected by myself, as the sole proprietor of Flying Monkey Press:

First Place: Robert Milby,  "I Was Never Under Quarantine"

    -Receives a copy of my latest book, Love's Compass, & will be published in the Flying Monkey Productions blog.

Second Place: Alan Catlin, "A Journal of the Plague Year"

    -Will be published in the Flying Monkey Productions blog.

Third Place: Patrick Connors, "The New Normal"

    -Will receive a copy of my chapbook, My Minnesota Boyhood.

Honorable Mentions:

-Jaewon Chang, "Marching in Batasam"

-Robert Milby, "Social Disgracing"

-Jaewon Chang, "Snaps in Wilmington, Delaware"

-John C. Mannon, "Watch"

-Alan Catlin, "Quarantined"

-E.P. Fisher, "The Ballad of Western Man"

-Paul Clemente, "A River Remembers 1918"

-Douglas Taylor, "The Life and Times of Stagecoach Mary"

-Paul Clemente, "About 3 PM Central on July 15, 2010

-John C. Mannone, "Life Cycle"

Again, many thanks to all who participated, and watch out next summer on both the POETS and Flying Monkey Productions Facebook pages, and this blog here, for announcements about 2021! First and Second place poems will appear here in the next few days, and prizes are being mailed out shortly.

QUARANTINE MADNESS SALE!

 

Just before the Quarantine began, I received another order of my most recent book, Love's Compass, and stocked up on Until The Words Came, as well. While going thru my files, I found a very few copies of some other chapbooks I've published. All are on sale until midnight of August 31st! Love's Compass and Until The Words Came can be had for just $10 a copy, plus $3 S&H. The others, Moses Parts The Tulips and My Minnesota Boyhood, oldies but goodies, are just $8 each, plus $3 S&H.

I'm not gonna tell ya they're going like hotcakes (aren't hotcakes awesome?). I believe the best place for a poet to sell books is at a live reading. Times being what they are, that isn't possible right now, and if anyone was jonesing for some literary diversion, I'm happy to oblige. Drop me a line at: dorothyy62 at yahoo dot com.

I hope you're all staying healthy, and doing as well as you can considering the barrage of mixed information we're getting from all sides. An hour or two in the backyard with a book of poems, and maybe a pad of paper and a pen to write your own, might be a good way to spend these late summer days.