Every day up until our What Is Feminist Poetry? event we are collaborating on with Threads Equality Agency, we will be sharing a poem which exemplifies feminist poetry in one way or another – to celebrate these voices and start exploring the ideas and experiences they raise. Who writes feminist poetry? What is it about, and what kind of language does it use?
And remember – our event will include an open mic segment so please do bring along (or comment below!) any poetry you’ve written which you think explores or illustrates your experience of your gender, or poetry by anyone else (living, dead, celebrated, anonymous or otherwise) which you think deserves to be shared, discussed, or heard.
Our event is TOMORROW! Get yer tickets now to avoid disappointment on the door. This also means we have only two more feminist poems to share with you in our feminist poetry advent calendar. But they’re both good’uns.
This penultimate feminist poem is by our very own Serena Arthur who will be one of our performers tomorrow night. Serena (http://www.libraryofbirmingham.com/ypl-serenaarthur) is a second year English student at Mansfield College, Oxford. From the ages of 16 to 18 she held the title of Birmingham’s Young Poet Laureate 2014 – 16 and, both during and after this period, has performed
in many venues, including Birmingham Town Hall, Writing West Midlands’ Birmingham Literature Festival, London School of Economics and lots and lots of schools. Serena even read on Barbados television in 2015 and is looking forward to performing more in Oxford. Here’s one of her powerful and truthful pieces exploring themes which have come up before in this feminist poetry rundown – ownership of your own body, self-perception, self-respect, and finding strength. Here’s “Greenhouse”:
There doesn’t seem to be
A mid-point in our society
Between was
And could have been
A focus on the negatives
That cancels out the positives
Subtracts our sense of self worth
And multiplies our doubt
And leaves us all wondering
What life is all about
We live a society
Where x equals perfection
And any kind of difference
or dissymmetry
Fails to fit into the equation
Where we are ashamed
Of our own bodies
Of our own bodies
Both the parts that we can cover
And edit and makeover and change
And the parts that whatever we do
Will always be the same
When we hate that our
Bodies that don’t fit the prototype
Of those we see on TV
Or in the papers or in the magazines
For when x equals perfection
We are unable to work out why
We look like we do
Why we don’t look
Like they do
It’s hard to realise
That even the new generations
Are following in our footsteps
Not towards acceptance
But towards unneeded operations
It’s hard to realise
They need a popstar to tell them
That nobody’s perfect
And a group of scantily clad singers
To tell them that they’re worth it
We need to spread the message
That we should already know
That are bodies aren’t a battleground
But a place where we can grow
We need to let poppies bloom in our pores
Let our bodies be a paradise
A sanctuary
A greenhouse for
Self appreciation
And self respect
Remove the magnifying glass
from our imperfections
And let our bodies rest
In peace
Just as beautiful now as
They have
Always been
