WHAT MY WOMANISM LOOKS LIKE by TINA B MARIE

A comparative-type definition

"WOMANISM IS TO FEMINISM 

as 

PURPLE IS TO LAVENDER" 

~Alice Walker~

Read More on the subject here: http://thankherforsurviving.blogspot.com/2015/05/womanism-is-to-feminism-as-purple-is-to.html


LISTEN!

DUEL CITIZENSHIP by Denise Chaila

She's got awesome music and sound effects going on in the background. Check this out. In fact, listen to this a couple of times!

FAKE DEEP

a repost

film and poem by Cecile Emeke

"If I hear one more poem written by a man
telling women how to live their lives by policing
their clothes,
bodies,
sexuality,
make up use,
reading habits,
exercise regimes
and cooking skills,
I’m going to slap somebody…

WHAT I'VE LEARNED by Aja Monet

Aja Monet does the kind of poetry that people who don't get poetry...actually get.  Worth listening to more than once.

Race
Class
Gender
Self-Love
Interdependence

She covers it all. 

Aja Monet

Poet, Feminist, Activist

I know cloud formations

that raindrops don't fall in a teardrop shape

they originally fall in the shape of a flat oval

I don't remember where I read that

...

how to be broken and put together again

I know my arms are long

and my hands remind me of vines

I know laughter

sometimes sounds like bubble wrap

and it's my favorite part of unpacking boxes

When I smile I quint my eyes

i know men with deep diaphram laughter

and lady bugs aren't really ladies..

I know they like to follow me into subway cars

on days when I need to be reminded of magic

I know spider webs sparkle like diamonds after rainshowers

I know yestedfay is the day before tomororw

and tomrrow is an illusion where I imagine...

LISTEN TO THE REST 

          OF 

"WHAT I'VE LEARNED"

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A BRAVE AND STARTLING TRUTH by Maya Angelou

We, this people, on a small and lonely planet

Traveling through casual space
Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns
To a destination where all signs tell us
It is possible and imperative that we learn
A brave and startling truth

And when we come to it
To the day of peacemaking
When we release our fingers
From fists of hostility
And allow the pure air to cool our palms

When we come to it
When the curtain falls on the minstrel show of hate
And faces sooted with scorn are scrubbed clean
When battlefields and coliseum
No longer rake our unique and particular sons and daughters
Up with the bruised and bloody grass
To lie in identical plots in foreign soil

When the rapacious storming of the churches
The screaming racket in the temples have ceased
When the pennants are waving gaily
When the banners of the world tremble
Stoutly in the good, clean breeze

When we come to it
When we let the rifles fall from our shoulders
And children dress their dolls in flags of truce
When land mines of death have been removed
And the aged can walk into evenings of peace
When religious ritual is not perfumed
By the incense of burning flesh
And childhood dreams are not kicked awake
By nightmares of abuse

When we come to it
Then we will confess that not the Pyramids
With their stones set in mysterious perfection
Nor the Gardens of Babylon
Hanging as eternal beauty
In our collective memory
Not the Grand Canyon
Kindled into delicious color
By Western sunsets

Nor the Danube, flowing its blue soul into Europe
Not the sacred peak of Mount Fuji
Stretching to the Rising Sun
Neither Father Amazon nor Mother Mississippi who, without favor,
Nurture all creatures in the depths and on the shores
These are not the only wonders of the world

When we come to it
We, this people, on this minuscule and kithless globe
Who reach daily for the bomb, the blade and the dagger
Yet who petition in the dark for tokens of peace
We, this people on this mote of matter
In whose mouths abide cankerous words
Which challenge our very existence
Yet out of those same mouths
Come songs of such exquisite sweetness
That the heart falters in its labor
And the body is quieted into awe

We, this people, on this small and drifting planet
Whose hands can strike with such abandon
That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living
Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness
That the haughty neck is happy to bow
And the proud back is glad to bend
Out of such chaos, of such contradiction
We learn that we are neither devils nor divines

When we come to it
We, this people, on this wayward, floating body
Created on this earth, of this earth
Have the power to fashion for this earth
A climate where every man and every woman
Can live freely without sanctimonious piety
Without crippling fear

When we come to it
We must confess that we are the possible
We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world
That is when, and only when
We come to it.

~Maya Angelou

apathy by warsan shire

So what are you going to say at my funeral 
now that you've killed me?

* * * * *
Here lies the body of the love of my life 
whose heart I broke
Without a gun to my head
Here lies the mother of my children, 
both living and dead
Rest in peace my true love who I took for granted
The most bomb pussy 
who because of me sleep evaded

Her shroud 

is 
Loneliness

Her god 
was 
Listening

Her heaven 
will be 
a love without betrayal

Ashes to ashes
Dust to sidechicks

~Warsan Shire

~Performed by Beyonce, 

 LEMONADE 2016

CALLING ALL WOMEN!!!

Ruby Dee, Ruby Dee, Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee

Ruby Dee reading her own poem,

"Calling All Women"

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LOVE LETTER TO SELF

“and were you being good to yourself?”

LOVE LETTER TO SELF

i don’t think so.
 but, i forgive you, girl,
who tallied stretch marks
into reasons why no one should get close.

i forgive you, silly girl, 

sweet breath, decent by default.
i forgive you for being afraid.
did everything betray you?
even the rain you love so much
made rust out of your jewellery?

i forgive you, soft spoken girl
speaking with fake brash voice,
fooling no one.
i see you, tender
even on your hardest days.

i forgive you,
waiting for him to call,

i forgive you, the diets
and the cruel friends.
especially for that one time you said
‘i f*cking give up on love,
it’s not worth it,
i’d rather be alone forever’.
you were just pretending, weren’t you?
i know you didn’t mean that.
your body, your mouth, your heart,
made specifically for loving.
sometimes the things we love,
will kill us,
but weren’t we dying anyway?

i forgive you for being
something that will eventually die.
perishable goods,
fading out slowly,
little human,
i wouldn’t want to be in a world
where you don’t exist.

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REST IN POWER NTOZAKE SHANGE

I saw the choreopoem FOR COLORED GIRLS WHO HAVE CONSIDERED SUICIDE WHEN THE RAINBOW IS ENOUGH on a stage in San Francisco at a time when I thought I just didn't have it in me to understand a poem.

When I saw this feminist piece acted out on a bare stage but for the black women in different colored dresses, I didn't understand how wrong I was about my heart-mind connection.  

This poem broke through and got to me.

I don't think I'd have been moved to tears by Warsan Shire,  Nayyirah Waheed,  or Claudia Rankine 

if not for Ntozake Shange's words helping me get over that first hurdle.

The words "Rest In Power" have never applied better.

In addition to her Obie Award-winning choreopoem, Shange wrote novels including 'Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo' and poetry collections like 'Nappy Edges.'

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/ntozake-shange-dead-colored-girls-playwright-was-70-1155732

Read a lovely slice of this work in the next post

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ENUF by Ntozake Shange

at 4:30 AM

she rose

movin the arms & legs that trapped her

she sighed affirmin the sculptured man

& made herself a bath

of dark musk oil egyptian crystals

& florida water to remove his smell

to wash away the glitter

to watch the butterflies melt into

suds & the rhinestones fall beneath

her buttocks like smooth pebbles

in a missouri creek

layin in water

she became herself

ordinary

brown braided woman

with big legs & full hips

reglar

seriously intendin to finish her

night's work

she quickly walked to her guest

straddled on her pillows & began

'you'll have to go now /

i've

a lot of work to do / & i

cant

with a man around / here

are yr pants /

there's coffee on the

stove / it's been

very nice / but i cant see

you again /

you got what you came

for / didnt you'

& she smiled

he wd either mumble curses bout crazy b*tch*s

or sit dumbfounded

while she repeated

i cdnt possibly wake up / with

a strange man in my bed / why

don't you go home'

she cda been slapped upside the head

or verbally challenged

but she never waz

& the ones who fell prey to the

dazzle of hips painted with

orange blossoms & magnolia scented wrists

had wanted no more

than to lay between her sparklin thighs

& had planned on leaving before dawn

& she had been so divine

devastatingly bizarre the way

her mouth fit round

& now she stood a

reglar colored girl

fulla the same malice

livid indifference as a sistah

worn from supportin a wd be hornplayer

or waiting by the window

& they knew

& left in a hurry

she wd gather her tinsel

& jewels from the tub

& laugh gayly or vengeful

she stored her silk roses by her bed

& when she finished writin

the account of her exploit in a diary

embroidered with lilies & moonstones

she placed the rose behind her ear

& cried herself to sleep. 

Enuf 

by 

Ntozake Shange

From 

For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide

When The Rainbow Was Enuf

***************************

2018 is this poem's 44th anniversary

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34 EXCUSES

34 EXCUSES...

“1. I’m lonely so I do lonely things
2. Loving you was like going to war; I never came back the same.
3. You hate women, just like your father and his father, so it runs in your blood.
4. I was wandering the derelict car park of your heart looking for a ride home.
5. You’re a ghost town I’m too patriotic to leave.
6. I stay because you’re the beginning of the dream I want to remember.
7. I didn’t call him back because he likes his girls voiceless.
8. It’s not that he wants to be a liar; it’s just that he doesn’t know the truth.
9. I couldn’t love you, you were a small war.
10. We covered the smell of loss with jokes.
11. I didn’t want to fail at love like our parents.
12. You made the nomad in me build a house and stay.
13. I’m not a dog.
14. We were trying to prove our blood wrong.
15. I was still lonely so I did even lonelier things.
16. Yes, I’m insecure, but so was my mother and her mother.
17. No, he loves me he just makes me cry a lot.
18. He knows all of my secrets and still wants to kiss me.
19. You were too cruel to love for a long time.
20. It just didn’t work out.
21. My dad walked out one afternoon and never came back.
22. I can’t sleep because I can still taste him in my mouth.
23. I cut him out at the root, he was my favorite tree, rotting, threatening the foundations of my home.
24. The women in my family die waiting.
25. Because I didn’t want to die waiting for you.
26. I had to leave, I felt lonely when he held me.
27. You’re the song I rewind until I know all the words and I feel sick.
28. He sent me a text that said “I love you so bad.”
29. His heart wasn’t as beautiful as his smile
30. We emotionally manipulated one another until we thought it was love.
31. Forgive me, I was lonely so I chose you.
32. I’m a lover without a lover.
33. I’m lovely and lonely.
34. I belong deeply to myself .”

― Warsan Shire

34 excuses for why we failed at love

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AND THEN NONE OF IT MATTERED

And then none of it mattered,
none of it mattered anymore—
whoever I am disappeared.
The recorder in my mind clicked off,
the mirrors in my head were gone;
and all that was left
was how much I could touch you
and how much you touched me.

It’s a kind of silence,
touching and being touched,
a kind of blindness—
your sense of self falls away
and something wild blooms
in your skin, something
animals might call God
if they could speak."

~Peregrine

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who will be the messenger of this land

by Jaki Shelton Green

who will be the messenger of this land
count its veins
speak through the veins
translate the language of water
navigate the heels of lineage
who will carry this land in parcels
paper, linen, burlap
who will weep when it bleeds
and hardens
forgets to birth itself

who will be the messenger of this land
wrapping its stories carefully
in patois of creole, irish,
gullah, twe, tuscarora
stripping its trees for tea
and pleasure
who will help this land to
remember its birthdays, baptisms
weddings, funerals, its rituals
denials, disappointments,
and sacrifices

who will be the messengers
of this land
harvesting its truths
bearing unleavened bread
burying mutilated crops beneath
its breasts

who will remember
to unbury the unborn seeds
that arrived
in captivity
shackled, folded,
bent, layered in its
bowels

we are their messengers
with singing hoes
and dancing plows
with fingers that snap
beans, arms that
raise corn, feet that
cover the dew falling from
okra, beans, tomatoes

we are these messengers
whose ears alone choose
which spices
whose eyes alone name
basil, nutmeg, fennel, ginger,
cardamom, sassafras
whose tongues alone carry
hemlock, blood root, valerian,
damiana, st. john's wort
these roots that contain
its pleasures its languages its secrets

we are the messengers
new messengers
arriving as mutations of ourselves
we are these messengers
blue breath
red hands
singing a tree into dance
© Jaki Shelton Green

WELCOME HOME

Eye Of Photography https://mrstorme.smugmug.com/

“every mouth you’ve ever kissed
was just practice
all the bodies you’ve ever undressed
and ploughed in to
were preparing you for me.
i don’t mind tasting them in the
memory of your mouth
they were a long hall way
a door half open
a single suit case still on the conveyor belt
was it a long journey?
did it take you long to find me?
you’re here now,
welcome home.”

~ Warsan Shire

TO ALL THE BOYS I'VE LOVED BEFORE by MAYA del VALLE

to all the boys I’ve loved before, part 1:

we are not your mothers
and are not meant to be
it is not our responsibility to raise you into respectful beings
you have been weaned from the breast of a woman for years

yet you come to us
wounded and half filled with promises you can only keep half the time
trying to suckle our sense of self dry
we’ve become much to accustomed to sleepless nights and damp pillows
have become accustomed to waiting for our empty beds
to be weighed down with the bodies of men heavy with the scent
and the hands of other women

mornings with swollen puffy eyes are becoming routine
and we simply wanting to be loved
simply wanting to be able to love ourselves unconditionally
simply wanting to be held and feel safe
simply wanting the truth of whether you can really love us or not
play Hester Prynn
wear scarlet letters on our chests
become adulteresses
cheating ourselves out of what we truly deserve

willing to settle for less
willing to act like a little less than a goddesses
willing to sleep with the enemy
men too scared to stop acting like boys
thinking we can love away their scars
so we take the lashes of the insecurities they pour on us
and lick our wounds in quiet mourning for the little girls we lose by the minute
fast fading memories of playing hopscotch
and skippin’ rope
we now play freeze tag with each other’s hearts
play hide and seek with our love
if we just don’t breathe maybe we won’t get caught
up in the spider’s web we weave while waiting for what we give away to be returned

part 2:

you said you had a photographic memory

but apparently you forgot that honesty

begins by being real with yourself

and the ones you claim you love

should have never wasted my time

and just acted like the man you claimed and told the world you were

made a production of setting my folks at ease with tales of how you’d do all it ever took to never break my heart

I guess you thought you were talking to a roomful of the deaf and blind

figured they didn’t hear you

coz I never saw it coming

but the truth cannot be hidden

what’s clouded in darkness will always come to light my love

you shoulda known that

claiming you saw my light so clearly and brightly

so I left

chasing paper trails of promises you’d already set on fire

left with nothing but the ashes of who you’d written that you were

and singed fingers from trying to grasp the impossible

and the only thing I’ve really lost

are lukewarm kisses

that for too long I kept trying to tune the beat of my heart, a few lies, and stories

about honesty and truth

I guess shit happens

I just wish it wasn’t me

and I guess

it’s so much better to have loved and lost

than never to have loved at all

I know that’s some easy shit to say

but I’m still gonna try to live by it

I’m still gonna try to put my faith to rest in it

I will sleep on dry pillows now in a bed big enough to love myself in

I will awake these coming mornings with my eyes dry and shining

full of the knowledge I am priceless and worth nothing but honesty

I will remove the scarlet letter from my chest 

and hold the hand of the little girl I used to be

and say I’m sorry to her

I’m sorry for cheating you out of the joy you have always deserved

and I will wait

for a man

to come along

that can give me the truth of how much he can really love me

©2005 Mayda del Valle

ON BEAUTY

Feeling Rebloggy

That image you see in the mirror isn’t the truth.

Your eyes have become magnifying glasses, you can’t see past what you believe is wrong.
The stretch marks, the lack of a thigh gap, the acne that every product you try can’t seem to remove.

I’m sorry that men have instilled these ideals in you, men whose catcalls feel like crosses and lustful looks feel like nails forcing you to accept their unholy crucifixion.

They get angry if you show a lack of interest, as if they actually believe something along the lines of ‘Hey sexy’ and ‘Nice tits’ is a compliment.

I’m sorry for the unrealistic expectations.

I’m sorry that your thickness isn’t the right type of thick if your butt is fat but your stomach isn’t flat.

I’m sorry that if you happen to be a cup size not fitting for these men, there is a grievous error in your genetic makeup deserving of the title flat-chested among other poisonous opinions just because your breasts aren’t the type they want to fondle.

From a young age, you have been criticized simply for the act of living, torn down for the slightest resistance to male privilege.

I cannot bear to imagine the things you’ve heard walking down the street, in the workplace and even at home simply because of your gender.

So if no one has told you these things, let me be the first.

It’s okay if your skin is not as smooth as that of those Instagram models.

It’s okay if you don’t have a thigh gap and it’s okay if you do; it doesn’t matter.

It’s okay if your weight doesn’t fit their particular scale.

Your weight; your acne; your scars; your thigh gap; your lack of a thigh gap; your skin tone; your skin color; your height; your smile; your hair; none of these things impact you as a person, and the opinions of these men who hardly have anything to bring to the table mean nothing.

You are beautiful.

Read it again, as much as you need to.

You are beautiful.

~Maxwell Diawuoh

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A LAST WILL

I leave to children exclusively, 
but only for the life of their childhood, 
all and every the dandelions of the fields 
and the daisies thereof, 
with the right to play among them freely, 
according to the custom of children, 
warning them at the same time against the thistles. 

And I devise to children 
the yellow shores of creeks 
and the golden sands beneath the water thereof, 
with the dragon flies that skim the surface of said waters, 
and and the odors of the willows that dip into said waters, 
and the white clouds that float on high above the giant trees.

~Williston Fish, "A Last Will," 1898

Image: Muhammad Muheisen, Photo Journalist

SALT 123

if 
a man
can 
only show vulnerability 
for
what is between my legs
can
only
be
a 
heart
during 
sex
if an orgasm
is 
the only way
he
can
weep
what is his life
but 
a cage.

           - prison

     ~nayyirah waheed~

BEFORE BED

by Zora Howard

Bobby Pin crown,

You, my throne,

We make like an empire before this closet mirror door

A village in your eyes, my eyes reflecting back upon this sanctified seat and Oh

What they will bear witness to this eve.

When wrapping my hair, you watch me,

Press your chest right up on my back,

Hold my hips as if they were the only mast offering balance to this wayward sea captain

As if it were my hands sea, my hands sorcery, my hands witchcraft or

Wire weaver who spins gold threading a nest of precious stone

But my fingers are rather betting fiddling,

Finding things to fix on your face,

Throw to find there isn’t much a scab to pick, a zit to pop, fussing with your stubborn fuzz which you like so much to bury in the north west axis of my neck

You’re distracting.

I got a mouthful of pins and a bedtime to respect.

Though your core is gorged with God, your hands are full of sin, Young Man.

My waist does not a meadow make for you to serpent your way in, Young Man.

We’ve got to go to bed.

I is a still wet concrete and here comes you, a brazen unkempt boy,

Carving your gang signs all up alongside me with an unassuming stick.

Where is your home training?

Why do you make the city of me so unbecoming?

Your language is hardening in this landscape of mine.

Everyone will pass here and what will they find?

That I am your block, I am your boulevard, your bayou,

And baby, I don’t mind, I don’t mind, I don’t mind.

When wrapping my hair, you stare and dare not touch.

Instead, our brown goes for one long line around.

We cannot tell where you begin my end.

I start to blush. You

Make to play connect my dots, my blemishes, and beauty marks

And with your lips inaugurate my monuments like they’ve just began this night last night

And this love is so fresh it squeaks and shines and…lies a little bit,

Has secrets and shit to hide a little bit,

Small unpoetic things like

Like, Baby, you don’t know how to each chicken and sometimes it bothers me.

Like you leave so much meat on the bone, your leftovers could feed a small child with a big appetite or make a nice snack for me now or late with some potato bread or butter.

And it takes everything in my power not to clean your plate for you but, goodness, that would be ghastly.

And also, I pass gas.

I talk with my neck and my hands, not only when I’m fed up but sometimes, when I’m trying to say a point like

It just helps me express it better.

And I got a little street in me. Sometimes, I lose my cool and get hood.

And I never lose in Taboo but I’m so competitive I’d make you cry and I’m mean.

Your feet…make me uncomfortable.

You never have a clue but it’s more than a hint when I suggest you and I should go get pedicures together soon.

I have 13 piercings and two tattoos and you still look at my body like it’s brand spanking new.

It’s not.

I’m afraid you’ll find my tarnished parts.

If you keep snooping around the way you do, I’m afraid you’ll see there is no land left here unchartered or un-charred.

This was an empire before they burned their fires, stuck their flags deep in this soil.

And when the ear was barren dry, they gave it back, unholy act.

See, I’m no piece girl, when I love I give the whole of me.

So when they left the lease in pieces, they also left these holes in me.

My monuments have seen some things, Baby,

Civil wars, famine, and crusades, Baby, the conquer and raids of holy places.

So before we go any farther, Baby, will you listen to the kind of mess my heart’s been in?

Touch the grit that’s sitting tranquil between each whittled rib?

After all the best has been torn away, will you want the rest of me,

The parts that poets find grotesque and plain, The bits that boil and bubble over, crack and callous, break down and dust to dust;

My crown is fluff.

Bobby pinned bee hive hair,

But, when wrapping my hair just before bed, you stay.

My shoulder be your port, your eyes reverse my isle, your hands hold my sea.

Let’s make camp here for a while and Oh,

What they will bear witness to this eve.