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finishinglinepress · 9 months

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FLP POETRY BOOK OF THE DAY: all the time more than anything by Emily Zogbi

On SALE now! Pre-order Price Guarantee: https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/all-the-time-more-than-anything-by-emily-zogbi/

all the time more than anything is an interrogation of memory and ghosts, #family and time, magic and fear. While some poems speak to Janis Joplin and Emily Dickinson, others hear from Medea and Kitty Genovese. The book is populated by a chorus of #women, talking all at once, who appear at the supermarket, on the beach, in a 7-11 parking lot, waiting for someone to come home, or hoping no one comes #home at all. all the time more than anything explores the voices and people we collect across generations, be it through mental illness, trauma, grief, recipes, remedies, or stories. The poems sit with a variety of ghosts—the therapist, the mother, the mentor, the killer—but one voice rings through the clutter: a lonely speaker, tasked with becoming herself. #poetry

Emily Zogbi is a writer, editor and poet from Long Island. In 2021, she earned her MFA in poetry from The New School. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in Chronogram, Rumble Fish Quarterly, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, RHINO Poetry, Half Mystic, and Ocean State Review, among others. Zogbi was the recipient of the 2021 Sappho Poetry Prize from Palette Poetry. She has worked in book publishing, entertainment journalism, childcare, and unemployment, but she mostly enjoys estate sales, bad movies, and collecting rocks. She wishes she had been a dancer.

PRAISE FOR all the time more than anything by Emily Zogbi

“Emily Zogbi‘s first collection weaves the abstract and the accessible so cleanly, tightly and honestly that it should be put on the top of any poetry lovers to read pile. Zogbi tackles the extremely difficult subjects of personal tragedy and what it means to be a woman with all of the excitement and control of a ballerina with a sledgehammer. Her work is by no means clumsy. She smashes only that which deserves to be broken – callousness, misogyny, and silence – then builds something beautiful from the rubble. Zogbi’s handling of the personal is inspiring: quiet and simple when necessary, loud and brash when worthy, and wrapped in delicate metaphors when nothing else will do.”

–Jared Singer, author of Forgive Yourself These Tiny Acts of Self-Destruction

“Emily Zogbi’s all the time more than anything comes to us from a world that feels slightly off kilter, where the living and the dead mingle in kitchens and bedrooms and forests and asylums. She explores this world confidently, comfortably, recording each strangeness encountered there with a clear if not entirely unsuspicious eye, whether it’s a “refrigerator door swinging open / like the flag of a surrendering army” or a dragonfly with “the face of a lion and the hands of a person / I loved whose voice was not a voice // I recognized.” While Zogbi’s poems often proceed like waking dreams, what steers them around the easy trap of surrealism is her deep sense of empathy. This book is a rare and entrancing gift.”

–Mark Bibbins, author of 13th Balloon

Please share/please repost #flpauthor #preorder #AwesomeCoverArt #poetry #read #poetrybook #poems

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floxalopex · 3 years

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I don't know if somebody already did this specifically. But yh the heck let's go.

WARNING 1: THIS IS NOT A POST FOR SENSITIVE PEOPLE AND/OR MINORS. (it contains gore and sexual themes and more).

And yes, SALT. Lots of salt.

WARNING 2: this has nothing to do with Christianity specifically. Atheism isn't hate towards your god(s) and/or its believers. Although there are many forms of atheism (some of which are so strong and violent they make me furious) think about mine as a general form of indifference. I hate the Church state, yes, but sorry I have that "at home" so please don't blame me. I don't like Abrahamic religions in general, but I've grown up with one.

I'm thankfully not a cult survivor, but I can understand some things.

WARNING 3: living in a very religious contest I have many beloved friends and relatives (starting with my mother) who believe in their god a lot. So if my words are too disrespectful tell me, I really don't want to hurt anybody.

Okay.

So.

I've seen many similarities between the cult Horde Prime put his clones in and your very average, very white, very western idea of Christianity.

1) Theophagy:

First of all, I really don't know much how this thing is lived in other Christian countries, but in mine they put a lot of emphasis on the Eucharist.

As far as I've seen I think it's pretty obvious how much in ancient cultures there's a very carnal and very grounded idea of the spirit. That can result in believing the soul to be the "psyche", so literally "the breath of life", the coordination of your sinapsis togheter (to me a very poetic definition of how our whole being ourselves is just us being our central nervous system) or it can lead to you eating the ashes of your granpa so you get his good qualities (something some cultures still do today). They said that the head of Orpheus was buried in the island of Lesbo and that's why its land was filled with amazing poets like Sappho. There's this very, sorry, brutal idea of the embodyment of the soul, the talents of a person, that even a piece of corpse is considered a magic thingy.

This is no different in the very old, very ancient, very rural Christian religion (at least in the most common version of it, we have many flavours of one truth apperentely).

When I was in High School we studied a lot Bacchus and the Baccanalia, because there are several commedies about it. My teacher, being very religious, was almost ashamed to admit that a lot of acts of those festivities (let's say that the most normal thing was for women to give their milk to animal cubs) were actually not very dissimilar in their rawness to certain habits of the religion.

So, what about Horde Prime? (me *yh, what about it, stupid ADHD?*). I have seen a post in the past explaining that yes, even though spacebats have the dentition of a frugivore bat and not haematophagus bat, the scene of Prime recharging in his throne with all those disgusting cables filled with green liquid referred as "the life force" of his clones...well, it's surely something.

Looks like a sort of sci-fi vampire thing. Which is very cool and I love this headcanon. So again I kept thinking...what is THAT amniotic fluid? I am a student, so correct me if I say something wrong.

Amniotic fluid is a combination of water 99%, proteins, glucids, fats and some salts (...it's even effective for electric conduction...the heck is that pool).

The most similar body fluid is plasma, so blood less cells. Even the serum, so plasma less proteins, is very similar.

Now, stated that Prime is a manipulative jerk, stated that I don't know much about aliens' physiology, stated that that fluid can come from blood potentially, in Church they say this:

*and Jesus said: "This is my body/blood which I offer in sacrifice for you"*

Apart from it being very creepy, there's this idea in the whole religion-thingy: if you are human you are a selfish monster, so monstrous you made our Lord and Savior die for your sins for how messed up you were.

So basically you don't become a sinner, you are concived as one. Humanity is sin itself, it can never lead to something good.

So are the clones. That's why Prime, in his benevolence, feeds them with himself. To make them pure, to protect them from the outside world. To make them remember who their strenght comes from.

If you don't want to read all of this just go for the Futurama soda episode, it's basically the same thing. Bleah.

2) Corpse feticism and more.

Again, don't know you guys, but here we are filled with mummies. I went in a place in Palermo and ...my gosh why did I do that.

We have everything here, hands, heads, feet, teeth so many of them, dead babies, dead virgins, dead popes, dead elders, all of them for half the prize, but only if you call today.

We are. Filled. With these atrocities. At least we don't touch them anymore.

Sometimes I wonder if, apart from the "hygene", people in Middle Ages used to die at the honorable age of 13 also because they kissed those... thingies there.

So, can we please talk about Horde Prime collection of "previous selves"?

This man has a whole room filled with corpses of himself. In the Vatican you can find corpses of dead popes as well, preserved and even dressed in a very good way. In Italy in general we have these, I remember a whole room in a town near my city filled with skeletons of "saints". Personally I find it very disturbing because you are basically not allowing that body to rest and serve its last biological purpose, especially if you consider that most of these "saints" were mentally impared young kids who were killed brutally and died as "martyrs". In ancient Greece the WORST thing you could do to a corpse was to leave it unburied, without dignity.

It's getting darker now.

I like both headcanons for Prime, that of a spoiled (maybe even sexist) royal of a lost culture who wanted to conquer the universe and that of him being a sort of ancient evil spirit, but I personally like to stick with the latter.

Imagine the old bodies of the clones Prime used for himself. Pushed to their limits. Clones dying young is horrific as well, but like these people were forced to go on. Not to die. Not to age as much as possible. And now that they are dead they can't even rest. They are a show off for anyone to see. Their brains preserved and their literal dead flesh still tormented for reading.

One may ask me, then what about corpses in formalin for medical use? Well, one thing is a donor or a dead fetus or a corpse nobody claims. That's the story of the skeleton in my university, a young male who didn't eat much. A very lonely man. Well at least now he is well loved and appreciated, ah if only he knew that.

The point is, we respect them. We are grateful for the informations they give us. Gosh, I know I'm creepy, but I even cuddled one bone once. We know they probably suffered. Like, search for HeLa cells. That lady has my highest respect.

But Prime? Those are. Vessels. Just that.

Anyways, apart for the "respect the deads thing" I found Hordak's behaviour in that room that of high distress. Like, ehm, any normal person? Search for "Convento Dei Cappuccini", that place I was talking about in Palermo. The fact that I heard kids cry and "MEMENTO MORI" everywhere.

Everyone and everything is afraid of death, I just accepted that fear because it's normal. That doesn't mean I want to be reminded of it every week, especially if I'm a 7 yo kid.

Honorable mentions: that horrible art collection.

3) Double standards

When I went to catechism my teacher used a very feather hand on males and an iron fist on us ladies. We weren't allowed to wear trousers, to play football, to raise our voice. We were forced to be very clean, to sit with our legs as closed as possible. I heard it was worse before, at least we could play volleyball and weren't forced to knit.

We were however "encouraged" to sing and bake stupid cakes for Sundays. Mind you, I'm very feminine, but one thing is liking ribbons one thing is being a slave.

The boys...well, they could literally do anything. They broke things, used petards, beat each other. They were NEVER reproached, the teachers would say "oh, they are just boys". Like once I was so engrossed. I remember I had to sit behind a guy with his butt almost uncovered (because the lower you put the helm of your trousers the cooler you were) while I had to stay still with my head high, chest out, belly in and legs closed for 2h. The problem was: I almost pitied him. I was like "poor thing he doesn't know how to behave properly". That's so crazy, I was piting a free soul while I had my hands handcuffed because I truly believed the bullshit they put into my mind.

Now, imagine how did Horde Prime's clones feel about Catra and Glimmer.

They can dress as they please. Eat non amniotic fluid. Catra can even go wherever she wants.

To me, they didn't feel envious. As they should! That's how far an indoctrination can go.

Take Yudi interaction with Catra, he believes everything he is saying.

But I think deep down he knows, they all know, the truth, juding by his bitter reaction after being possesed. He knows he is the slave here, not the free man. But he wants to believe the other way round.

I think that yes, of course Prime kept Glimmer and Catra (and Hordak) because he needed them to conquer Etheria. But that is also a good way to show to the poor clones of how lost people far away from Prime's light can be. Slaves of their bodly needs and slaves of their individuality.

4) Sexual abuse

Do I need to explain this? Plus all those sick touches Prime gives not only to Hordak, but to Glimmer, Catra and Adora as well?

I don't know much about other countries, again, but here the Church is a real cancer. If a priest gets accoused of raping children he just gets put into another Church far away, and generally he keeps being a pedo even there and the game goes on.

I wouldn't exately say that Prime is a pedophile but clones are pretty innocent and neotenic to me so...idk.

Of course, Prime is his own state and his own rules, so yh. Raping all day. That's why I don't like to ship him with anything rather than a 100 m fall. Not even with his clones, sorry I know its kinky maybe but he is a monster.

Also, the way the clones feel like...honored to be raped. That's so sad. Maybe he convinced them this is the only right way they could experience sex and intimacy. I really don't know.

One thing I'm sure of is that Christian religion likes to often put shame on some "impure" acts. That's the name. The most impure of all is masturbation. If you are a male ...mmm well it's okay dear, it's not your fault you are male and so a sex starved animal. But if you are a girl? Ihhh oh dare you bitch.

Mind you, I fall in the ace spectrum but I did too have puberty and needs, and these thoughts in my head made me only conflicted.

Last thing. More of an asking. And more irriverent, so please stay away if you don't want to read.

So basically I understood I was atheist at 5 yo, just because I read two different versions of the birth of the Universe, one in my science book and one in my Bible (MY Bible, I still have it, was a gift of my aunt) and preferred the science version. I still felt conflicted, like once during a religion lesson at School (well...I don't blame Mussolini much in this case, I mean the Vatican wasn't still recognizing country indipendence and we needed a compromise) the teacher told me to stop drawing dinosaurs with Adam and Eve because they never existed. I mean...yes that's anachronistic but still I felt very sad, dinosaurs were cooler than that story. I remember I even made an experiment "if I say I don't believe in god will I get thunderstruck?". It didn't happen so I was like "oh cool, science wins". But then CATECHISM ecc ecc. The fun fact is that they think atheists are those who don't study religion, while I was the most zelous of the class.

So.

I just wonder...my baby boy Hordak is a man of science, what were his thoughts after his separation from Prime. I mean of course he still believed, but also not as much after some time. Entrapta is a support system for him of course, but he accepts her affection quite easily on canon. Which is amazing, still... maybe he was already doubting his devotion?

#Horde prime #horde clones #spacebats #Hordak #Yudi #atheism

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mollyringle · 4 years

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88 Lines About 44 Women Writers

So, I made a thing. I heard that '80s song about 44 women, and I decided to write...

88 LINES ABOUT 44 WOMEN WRITERS

Enheduanna was a poet

From four thousand years ago,

Sappho, too, wrote lyric lines

For lovers we may never know

Murasaki’s Tale of Genji

Might be the first novel ever,

Hildegard knew plants and music,

Mystical and wise and clever

Héloïse became a scholar,

Writing reams to Abelard,

Veronica the courtesan

Penned poems earning high regard

Aphra was a spy and playwright,

Boldly blazing cagey trails,

Marie-Catherine charmed the salons

With her retold fairy tales

Mary wrote on rights of women,

Did her gender proud and fine,

And her daughter, also Mary,

Gave the world a Frankenstein

Jane created Mr. Darcy,

Satirized society,

George’s books (or Mary Anne’s)

Show kindness and variety

Elizabeth, she loves thee, let her count the ways,

Her romance soars,

Charlotte gave us Rochester

And Jane Eyre out upon the moors

Emily is famed for Heathcliff,

Turbulent and dark and grim,

Anne wrote with more realism,

Sensible and calm and prim

Christina held a Goblin Market,

Lovely, eerie, and fantastic,

George romanced Chopin and kept her

Gender expression elastic

Harriet, with Uncle Tom,

Helped to encourage abolition,

Emily wrote eighteen hundred

Poems despite her shy condition

Louisa and her little women

Still cause us to rhapsodize,

Edith scored the Pulitzer,

The first woman to win the prize

Virginia urged a room of one’s own

For all women who would write,

Colette captivated France

As actor, novelist, playwright

Lucy Maud, she brought us Anne,

Now we all love Green Gables Farm,

Gertrude’s streams of consciousness

Challenge as they also charm

Agatha’s detectives make her

Outsell all the rest of us

Young Anne writing from an attic

Had faith in the best of us

Simone wrote of politics,

And culture, existentially,

Daphne’s stories (see Rebecca)

Gained fame exponentially

Anaïs’ journals

And erotica are wise and stirring

Flannery has Southern whimsy

With plenty of grace recurring

Harper’s Scout and Atticus

Have earned spots in posterity,

Maya told the truth of life

With starkness and hilarity

Shirley scared the hell out of us

With Hill House and other stories,

Octavia gave us a glimpse

Into the future’s trials and glories

Dorothy’s witty verse could cut you,

Every line a wicked smirk,

Gabriela taught and wrote

And earned the Nobel for her work

Mary wrote beloved poems,

Nature-loving and inspiring,

Isabel crafts magic novels,

Of her whimsy we’re admiring

Judy helped us all get through

Puberty with lessened pain,

Toni’s prose on race and life

Earns her fame; long may she reign

Ursula took us from Earthsea

To new planets far away,

Margaret’s handmaids made us shiver

May her wisdom light our way!

Women referenced:

1. Enheduanna

2. Sappho

3. Murasaki Shikibu

4. Hildegard of Bingen

5. Héloïse d’Argenteuil

6. Veronica Franco

7. Aphra Behn

8. Marie-Catherine Le Jumel de Barneville, Baroness d'Aulnoy

9. Mary Wollstonecraft

10. Mary Shelley

11. Jane Austen

12. Mary Anne Evans (George Eliot)

13. Elizabeth Barrett Browning

14. Charlotte Bronte

15. Emily Bronte

16. Anne Bronte

17. Christina Rossetti

18. George Sand

19. Harriet Beecher Stowe

20. Emily Dickinson

21. Louisa May Alcott

22. Edith Wharton

23. Virginia Woolf

24. Colette

25. Lucy Maud Montgomery

26. Gertrude Stein

27. Agatha Christie

28. Anne Frank

29. Simone de Beauvoir

30. Daphne du Maurier

31. Anaïs Nin

32. Flannery O’Connor

33. Harper Lee

34. Maya Angelou

35. Shirley Jackson

36. Octavia Butler

37. Dorothy Parker

38. Gabriela Mistral

39. Mary Oliver

40. Isabel Allende

41. Judy Blume

42. Toni Morrison

43. Ursula K. LeGuin

44. Margaret Atwood

#women writers #women of history #wise women #writers #88 lines about 44 women #filk #parody

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theresabookforthat · 5 years

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World Friendship Day!

“Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.” — Oprah Winfrey

With the proliferation of social media “friendship” has taken on broader meaning. Still, we all know what a good friend is and today, August 4th is World Friendship Day – as proclaimed by U.S. Congress in 1935. So hug a friend! Research shows that friendship and longevity are linked. To honor the bond, here are some special books – for adults and children – perfect for sharing with your friends…

CHANCES ARE . . . A NOVEL by Richard Russo

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Empire Falls comes a new revelation: a riveting story about the abiding yet complex power of friendship. Shot through with Russo’s trademark comedy and humanity, Chances Are… also introduces a new level of suspense and menace that will quicken the reader’s heartbeat throughout this absorbing saga of how friendship’s bonds are every bit as constricting and rewarding as those of family or any other community.

THE FRIENDS WE KEEP by Jane Green

Evvie, Maggie, and Topher have known each other since university. Their friendship was something they swore would last forever. By their thirtieth reunion, these old friends have lost touch with each other and with the people they dreamed of becoming. Together again, they have a second chance at happiness…until a dark secret is revealed that changes everything. The Friends We Keep is about how despite disappointments we’ve had or mistakes we’ve made, it’s never too late to find a place to call home.

THE FRIEND: A NOVEL by Sigrid Nunez

Winner of the National Book Award

A moving story of love, friendship, grief, healing, and the magical bond between a woman and her dog.

WOMEN IN SUNLIGHT: A NOVEL by Frances Mayes

Written with Frances Mayes’s trademark warmth, heart, and delicious descriptions of place, food, and friendship, Women in Sunlight is the story of four American strangers who bond in Italy and change their lives over the course of an exceptional year.

RETURN TO OAKPINE by Ron Carlson

In this tender and nostalgic portrait of western American life, Carlson tells the story of four middle-aged friends who once played in a band while growing up together in small-town Wyoming. One of them, Jimmy Brand, left for New York City and became an admired novelist. Thirty years later in 1999, he’s returned to die. Jimmy’s arrival sends the other men’s dreams and expectations, realized and deferred, whirling to the surface. And now that they are reunited, getting the band back together might be the most essential thing they ever do.

THE INTERESTINGS: A NOVEL by Meg Wolitzer

The summer that Nixon resigns, six teenagers at a summer camp for the arts become inseparable. Decades later the bond remains powerful, but so much else has changed. In The Interestings, Wolitzer follows these characters from the height of youth through middle age. Wide in scope, ambitious, and populated by complex characters who come together and apart in a changing New York City, The Interestings explores the meaning of talent; the nature of envy; the roles of class, art, money, and power; and how all of it can shift and tilt precipitously over the course of a friendship and a life.

FRIENDSHIP POEMS edited by Peter Washington

A celebration of friendship in all its aspects–from the delight of making a new friend to the serene joys of longtime devotion. Poems about best friends, false friends, dear friends, lost friends, even animal friends. These poems have been selected from the work of great poets in all times and places, including Emily Dickinson, W.H. Auden, Henry Thoreau, Shakespeare, Sappho, Robert Frost, Rudyard Kipling, Walt Whitman, and many others.

TEXT ME WHEN YOU GET HOME: THE EVOLUTION AND TRIUMPH OF MODERN FEMALE FRIENDSHIP by Kayleen Schaefer

A personal and sociological examination—and ultimately a celebration—of the evolution of female friendship in pop culture and modern society. Journalist Kayleen Schaefer relays her journey of modern female friendship: from being a competitive teenager to trying to be one of the guys in the workplace to ultimately awakening to the power of female friendship and the soulmates, girl squads, and chosen families that come with it.

THE JOY OF FRIENDSHIP: A THOUGHTFUL AND INSPIRING COLLECTION OF 200 QUOTATIONS by Jackie Corley

From childhood friendships to lifelong best buddies, it is the friendships we build along the way that defines who we are and what our lives are about. As Aristotle said, a friend is “a soul living in two bodies.” The Joy of Friendship collects this and other wisdoms to help you better appreciate those who make your world better.

FOOD WITH FRIENDS: THE ART OF SIMPLE GATHERINGS: A COOKBOOK by Leela Cyd

The best gatherings are simple, yet somehow special. These effortless recipes for brunch, teatime, happy hours, picnics, potlucks, and dessert all include a whimsical twist: a few slices of French toast doused in lavender syrup, rainbow chard empanadas served with pistachio crema, or a vibrant purple cauliflower hummus. With tips on creating an inviting table, stocking a pantry to make last-minute nibbles, and packing delicious parting gifts for guests, Food with Friends will inspire any get-together, however large or small.

FOR YOUNGER READERS

UNDER A PAINTED SKY by Stacey Lee

This beautifully written debut, young adult novel is an exciting adventure and heart-wrenching survival tale. But above all else, it’s a story about perseverance and trust that will restore your faith in the power of friendship.

THE FRIENDSHIP WAR by Andrew Clements

Stickers, Silly Bandz, Rainbow Looms, fidget spinners…buttons?! This school story about friendship and fads, from the bestselling author of Frindle, is perfect summer reading in anticipation of back-to-school.

FISH IS FISH by Leo Lionni

Two best friends, a minnow and a tadpole, are practically inseparable until the tadpole grows legs and decides to explore the world beyond the pond. When the tadpole, now a frog, returns to tell his friend of the extraordinary things he’s seen, the minnow, now a fish, tries to follow in his footsteps, but quickly finds that land is not what he expected. Friendship truly saves the day in this imaginative tale of a fish out of water.

For more on these and other friendly titles visit Friendship

#penguin random house #there's a book for that #friday reads #leo lionni #andrew clements #stacey lee #leela cyd #meg wolitzer #ron carlson #oprah winfrey #sigrid nunez #frances mayes #richard russo #Knopf #random house #Penguin

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qqueenofhades · 6 years

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50 Awesome Women To Know: Part 4

You can find the other installments here. I am not willing to rule out the possibility that there may be more. For reasons.

Mae Jemison (1956 -- ), African-American, astronaut, first black woman in space, educator, holder of a B.Sc. in chemical engineering from Stanford University and an M.D. from Cornell. Dancer, holder of multiple honorary doctorates, founder of a technology company.

Margaret of Anjou (1430-1482): French, queen of Henry VI of England and powerful and ambitious figure in the Wars of the Roses. Probably the real-life model for Cersei Lannister in Game of Thrones (down to having a totally horrible son).

Margaret Sanger (1879-1966): American, founder of Planned Parenthood and the pioneer of the American birth control movement (for which she was subject to all kinds of shit). Controversial for her belief in a mild form of eugenics and association with racist figures, but absolutely worth knowing about.

Margery Kempe (c. 1373-after 1438): English, religious woman, mystic, traveler, and author of possibly the first autobiography in English, The Book of Margery Kempe.

Maria Anna Mozart (1751-1829): Austrian, older sister of Wolfgang, and just as talented as a musical prodigy and performer, but forced to give up her career and settle down when she got older. Unfortunately unable to separate herself from the control of their abusive and domineering father, Leopold.

Mary Fields (c.1832-1914): African-American, first black female mail carrier in the United States, a route she drove every week in rural 19th-century Montana. Also known as “Stagecoach Mary.” Shot racists in the butt and had a lifetime pass to drink in her local tavern. Generally took zero shit. Awesome.

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797): English, writer, feminist, author of A Vindication of the Rights of Women among other works, career sadly cut short by her death in childbirth. Her daughter, Mary Shelley, is the author of Frankenstein and basically founded modern science fiction as a genre.

Maryam Mirzakhani (1977-2017): Iranian, mathematician and professor at Stanford, first female winner of the Fields Medal (the math Nobel Prize). Died at the age of just 40, from breast cancer.

Matilda of Tuscany (1046-1115): Italian, known as the “Great Countess,” powerful patron of Pope Gregory VII during the Investiture Conflict, and known for her skill on the battlefield, among other intrigues and politics.

Molly Brown (1867-1932): American, best known as the “Unsinkable Molly Brown” for her surviving of the Titanic sinking, but also an all-around awesome lady who worked to help poor children, was fluent in French, German, Italian, and Russian, an advocate for workers’ rights, and winner of the French Legion of Honor for her efforts to help wounded soldiers in WWI.

Naomi Klein (1970 -- ): French-Canadian, Jewish, left-wing activist and author of several books fiercely critiquing the destructive effects of runaway globalization, late-stage capitalism, and free-market economics, including No Logo and The Shock Doctrine.

Nonhelema (c.1718 -1786): Shawnee, chieftess and leader of her tribe, known as the “Grenadier Squaw” due to the fact that she stood six-foot-six and was famed as a warrior. Worked to contribute to the first dictionary of the Shawnee language and was an ally to white settlers, but she and her family were repeatedly screwed over by American soldiers (including the murder of her brother and husband), because of course they were.

Noor Inayat Khan (1914-1944): Indian, born in Russia, studied at the Sorbonne, poet and author became a spy and activist against the Nazis during World War II despite being a shy pacifist. Member of the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force and worked deep behind enemy lines. Captured and executed at Dachau concentration camp, at the age of just 30. First Muslim British war heroine.

Olympias of Macedonia (c.375-316 BC): Macedonian Greek, wife of Philip II of Macedonia and mother of Alexander the Great. Also a colorful character in her own right who was rumored to sleep with snakes. Was vampily played by Angelina Jolie in the 2004 film.

Rosalind Franklin (1920-1958): English, Jewish, scientist, chemist and researcher whose work on X-ray diffraction studies was crucial to the discovery of the structure of DNA (which Watson and Crick basically stole and never gave her credit). Died at just 37 from ovarian cancer.

Ruth Williams Khama (1923-2002): English/Botswanian, white British woman who married Seretse Khama, an African prince, in 1948, when interracial marriage was still very, very Not Done. Became the first First Lady of Botswana when he became president. Their story is told in the film A United Kingdom.

Samar Badawi (1981 -- ): Saudi Arabian, feminist and human rights activist, including challenging the guardianship rules, the ban on women driving and voting, and more. Received the 2012 International Woman of Courage award; was just arrested again (August 2018) by the Saudi government. Her brother, Raif Badawi, is also a blogger and liberal activist whose ongoing detainment is the cause of high-profile international attention.

Sappho (c.630-c.570 BC): Greek, poet and author, who was from the island of Lesbos, considerably admired in her own time, and whose work is well known for its exploration of same-sex female desire (including lending her name to the adjective Sapphic).

Sarah Churchill (1660-1744): English, the Duchess of Marlborough and one of the most influential women in late Stuart England, especially due to her long and close friendship with Queen Anne, which later fell out. Educated, strong-willed, stubborn, and could definitely hold a grudge.

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1648-1695): Mexican, nun, scholar, philosopher, feminist, and author, whose feminist works and biting critique of religious hypocrisy and patriarchy brought her into conflict with the Catholic hierarchy of colonial Mexico. Died after contracting the plague caring for fellow nuns.

Sorghaghtani Beki (c.1190-1252): Mongolian, daughter-in-law of Genghis Khan, married to his youngest son. Like her sister-in-law Alakhai, she was a trusted and highly capable administrator, and may be one of the most powerful women in history for her development of the Mongol Empire.

Victoria Woodhull (1838-1927): American, first woman to run for president (in 1872), journalist, stockbroker, advocate for “free love” and women’s rights, civil rights and labor reforms, fought with noted killjoy Anthony Comstock, ran a newspaper with her sister Tennessee Claflin.

Vigdís Finnbogadóttir (1930 --): Icelandic, elected first female president of Iceland, and first female president in the world, in 1980. This followed the major Icelandic women’s rights movements of 1975, and she won despite being a divorced single mother. Again, in 1980. It’s hard to imagine that happening in America now. She served for 16 years and saw Iceland transform into possibly the most progressive country in the world in gender equality.

Virginia Hall (1906-1982): American, worked as a spy for the British Special Operations during WWII, and later for the CIA. Had an almost ludicrously colorful and eventful career, as well as a wooden leg that she named “Cuthbert.”

Wilma Rudolph (1940-1994): African-American sprinter and Olympic champion, who suffered from pneumonia, scarlet fever, and polio as a child (including having to wear leg braces until she was eight) and was the 20th of 22 children in a dirt-poor sharecropping family in the Deep South. First woman to win three gold medals in a single Olympics (1960 Rome).

#history #women in history #50 women to know #medieval history #queer history

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arco-rc · 5 years

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Anne Carson and I first met in 1988 at a writers’ workshop in Canada, and have been reading each other’s work ever since. The interview that follows is a mix of our usual conversation and discussion about topics that preoccupy Carson’s work—mysticism, antiquity, obsession, desire.

Carson was born on June 21, 1950, in Toronto, the second and final child of Margaret and Robert Carson. Her mother was a housewife; her father worked for the Toronto Dominion Bank. During her childhood, the family moved about from bank to bank in small Ontario towns like Stoney Creek, Port Hope, Timmins.

In the 1970s Carson studied classics at the University of Toronto and then ancient Greek with the renowned classical scholar Kenneth Dover at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. In 1981, she returned to the University of Toronto to write a Ph.D. dissertation on Sappho, which later became Eros the Bittersweet— a brief, dense treatise on lack’s centrality to desire. Today, Carson lives in Ann Arbor, where she teaches classics and comparative literature at the University of Michigan.

Although she has always been reluctant to call herself a poet, Carson has been writing some heretic form of poetry almost all her life. Her work is insistent and groundbreaking, a blend of genres and styles that for years failed to attract notice. In the late eighties, a few literary magazines in the United States began to publish her work. Canadian venues were considerably less welcoming, and it was not until Carson was forty-two that a small Canadian pub- lisher, Brick Books, published her first book of poems, Short Talks.

By the mid-nineties, Carson was no longer trying to find publishers; rather, publishers were clamoring to find her. In short order, three collections of poems and essays appeared—Plainwater: Essays and Poetry (1995); Glass, Irony and God (1995); Men in the Off Hours (2000)—as well as a verse novel, Autobiography of Red (1998), which seamlessly blends Greek myth, homosexuality, and small-town Ontario life. Two ostensibly academic books followed: Economy of the Unlost and her translation of Sappho’s poetry, If Not, Winter, both in 2002.

Awards and accolades came tumbling in: a Guggenheim Fellowship (1995); a Lannan Award (1996); the Pushcart Prize (1997); a MacArthur Fellowship (2000); and the Griffin Prize for Poetry (2001). In 2002 Carson became the first woman to receive England’s T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry for The Beauty of the Husband: A Fictional Essay in 29 Tangos.

For the past several years, Carson has been working on a spoken-word opera about three women mystics—Aphrodite, the fourteenth-century French heretic Marguerite Porete, and Simone Weil. Next year, Random House will publish Decreation—the eponymously titled opera—alongside new poems and essays.

We started the following interview just after Christmas in 2002. Exhausted by the joyous demands of the season, Carson stretched out on an orange velveteen sofa and we talked—fortified by cups of oolong tea—for several hours.

https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/5420/anne-carson-the-art-of-poetry-no-88-anne-carson

#anne carson #paris review #art of poetry #will aitken

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theoreocat · 7 years

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International Women's Day

International Women's Day (IWD), originally called International Working Women's Day, is celebrated on March 8 every year. This special day commemorates the movement for women's rights.

The earliest Women's Day observance was held on February 28, 1909 (in New York) and organized by the Socialist Party of America. In the capital of the Russian Empire, on March 8, 1917 a demonstration of women textile workers began. This was the beginning of the Russian Revolution. Seven days later, the Emperor of Russia abdicated and the provisional Government granted women the right to vote. March 8 was declared a national holiday in the Soviet Russia in 1917.

From its official adoption in Soviet Russia following the Revolution, the holiday was celebrated in communist countries and by the communist movement worldwide. It was celebrated by the communists in China from 1922, and by Spanish communists in 1936. After the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1, 1949 the state council proclaimed that March 8 would be made an official holiday with women in China given a half-day off.

The United Nations began celebrating in International Women's Day in the International Women's Year, 1975. In 1977, the United Nations General Assembly invited member states to proclaim March 8 as the UN Day for women's rights and world peace.

Some influential women, including women’s rights activists, poets, musicians, politicians, humanitarians and scientists:

Sappho: One of the first known female writers.

Cleopatra: The last Ptolemaic ruler of Egypt.

Mary Magdalene: Accounts from the Gospels and other sources suggest Mary Magdalene was one of Jesus’ most devoted followers.

Boudicca: Inspirational leader of the Britons. She led several tribes in revolt against the Roman occupation.

Hildegard of Bingen: Mystic, author and composer.

Eleanor of Aquitaine: The first Queen of France.

Joan of Arc: The patron saint of France.

Mirabai: Indian mystic and poet.

St Teresa of Avila: Spanish mystic, poet and Carmelite reformer.

Catherine de Medici: Born in Florence, Italy, Catherine was married to the King of France at the age of 14.

Elizabeth I: Queen of England during a time of great economic and social change, she saw England cemented as a Protestant country.

Catherine the Great: One of the greatest political leaders of the Eighteenth Century.

Mary Wollstonecraft: English author, Wollstonecraft wrote the most significant book in the early feminist movement.

Jane Austen: One of the most famous female authors of all time, Jane Austen wrote several novels, which remain highly popular today.

Sojourner Truth: African-American abolitionist and women’s rights campaigner.

Margaret Fuller: An American women’s rights advocate.

Harriet Beecher Stowe: A lifelong anti-slavery campaigner.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton: American social activist and leading figure in the early women’s rights movement.

Queen Victoria: British Queen. Presiding over one of the largest empires ever seen, Queen Victoria was the head of state from 1837 – 1901.

Florence Nightingale: British nurse. By serving in the Crimean war, Florence Nightingale was instrumental in changing the role and perception of the nursing profession.

Susan B. Anthony: American Campaigner against slavery and for the promotion of women’s and workers rights.

Elizabeth Blackwell: Born in Britain, Blackwell was the first woman to receive a medical degree in America and the first woman to be on the UK medical register.

Emily Dickinson: One of America’s greatest poets, Emily Dickinson lived most of her life in seclusion.

Millicent Fawcett: A leading suffragist and campaigner for equal rights for women.

Emmeline Pankhurst: A British suffragette, Emily Pankhurst dedicated her life to the promotion of women’s rights.

Marie Curie: Polish/French scientist. Curie was the first woman to receive the Nobel Prize and the first person to win the Nobel Prize for two separate categories.

Emily Murphy: The first woman magistrate in the British Empire.

Rosa Luxemburg: Polish/German Marxist revolutionary, Rosa Luxemburg sought to bring social reform to Germany.

Helena Rubinstein: American businesswoman. Rubinstein formed one of the world’s first cosmetic companies.

Helen Keller: American social activist. At the age of 19 months, Helen became deaf and blind.

Coco Chanel: French fashion designer.

Eleanor Roosevelt: Wife and political aide of American president F.D.Roosevelt.

Annie Besant: British campaigner for social justice, an advocate of women’s rights and later member of the Theosophist society.

Katharine Hepburn: American actress. An iconic figure of twentieth Century film.

Simone de Beauvoir: French existentialist philosopher. Simone de Beauvoir developed a close personal and intellectual relationship with Jean-Paul Satre.

Mother Teresa: Albanian nun and charity worker.

Dorothy Hodgkin: British chemist. Hodgkin was awarded the Nobel prize for her work on critical discoveries of the structure of both penicillin and insulin.

Rosa Parks: American civil rights activist. Rosa Parks’ refusal to give up her bus seat in Montgomery, Alabama, indirectly led to some of the most significant civil rights legislation of American history. .

Queen Elizabeth II: Since ascending to the British throne in 1952, Elizabeth has become the longest serving British monarch.

Billie Holiday: American jazz singer. Given the title “First Lady of the Blues” Billie Holiday was widely considered to be the greatest and most expressive jazz singer of all time.

Indira Gandhi: First female prime minister of India.

Frida Kahlo y Calderón: Mexican painter known for her self-portraits.

Eva Peron: Eva Peron was widely loved by the ordinary people of Argentina. She campaigned tirelessly for both the poor and for the extension of women’s rights.

Betty Friedan: American social activist and leading feminist figure of the 1960s.

Margaret Thatcher: The first female Prime minister of Great Britain, she governed for over 10 years, putting emphasis on individual responsibility and a belief in free markets.

Marilyn Monroe: American actress who became one of the most iconic film legends.

Anne Frank: Dutch Jewish author. Anne Frank’s diary is one of the most widely read books in the world.

Audrey Hepburn: British actress. Influential female actor of the 1950s and 60s. Audrey Hepburn defined feminine glamour and dignity, and was later voted as one of the most beautiful women of the twentieth century.

Germaine Greer: Australian feminist icon of the 1960s and 1970s, Germaine Greer enjoys raising contentious issues.

Wangari Maathai: Kenyan-born environmentalist, pro-democracy activist and women’s rights campaigner.

Betty Williams: Together with Mairead Corrigan, Betty Williams campaigned to bring an end to the sectarian violence in Northern Ireland.

Billie Jean King: American tennis player. Billie Jean King was one of the greatest female tennis champions, who also battled for equal pay for women.

Shirin Ebadi: An Iranian lawyer, Ebadi has fought for human rights in Iran, representing political dissidents and founding initiatives to promote democracy and human rights.

Benazir Bhutto: The first female prime minister of a Muslim country.

Oprah Winfrey: American talk show host and businesswoman. Oprah Winfrey was the first woman to own her own talk show.

Madonna: American pop star. Madonna is the most successful female musician of all time.

Diana, Princess of Wales: British Royal princess who was noted for her humanitarian charity work.

J.K.Rowling: British author of the phenomenal best selling Harry Potter series.

Tegla Loroupe: Kenyan athlete. Loroupe held the women’s marathon world record and won many prestigious marathons.

Malala Yousafzai: Pakistani schoolgirl who defied threats of the Taliban to campaign for the right to education.

A post shared by The Oreo Cat (@theoreocatofficial) on Mar 8, 2017 at 8:12am PST

#international women's day #women's day #theoreocat #cats #cats of tumblr

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infactforgetthepark · 7 years

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[Free eBook REPEAT] Divining Divas: 100 Gay Men on their Muses [Poetry Tribute Anthology]

Divining Divas: 100 Gay Men on their Muses, edited by Michael Montlack, an award-winning poet and Berkley College faculty member, is an anthology of poetry written by gay men as tributes to the famous and/or fictional women who inspired them, free again for a limited time courtesy of LGBT specialty publisher Lethe Press.

This collection was named as part of the 2013 Over the Rainbow Project book list, and contains contributions by a hundred poets both established and new, including Kenyon Review Prize-winner Randall Mann, Lambda Literary Award-winner Mark Bibbins and many more, with tributes to influential women as ancient as Sappho and as modern as Lady Gaga (with a detour into pop culture with the X-Men and Buffy the Vampire Slayer et al.)

Free for a limited time, available worldwide DRM-free @ Amazon

Description Named one of the 2013 Over the Rainbow Project book list, sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Round Table of the American Library Association!

Editor Michael Montlack has assembled an anthology of a hundred gay poets--award winners and fresh voices--in thrall with female icons throughout the ages ranging from Gloria Swanson to Mary J, Blige, from Edith Piaf to Joni Mitchell, Bette Midler to Lady Gaga. These are not merely appreciations of the gorgeous and daring but poems that are confessional to bittersweet to witty.

#michael montlack #poetry #lgbt poetry #poetic tributes #poetry anthology #drm free

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limejuicer1862 · 5 years

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F WORD WARNING

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews

I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me. I gave the writers two options: an emailed list of questions or a more fluid interview via messenger.

The usual ground is covered about motivation, daily routines and work ethic, but some surprises too. Some of these poets you may know, others may be new to you. I hope you enjoy the experience as much as I do.

Amanda Earl

is a Canadian poet, publisher, prose-writer, visual poet and editor who lives in Ottawa, Ontario. Her first and only poetry book so far is Kiki (Chaudiere Books, 2014). Amanda is the managing editor of Bywords.ca and the fallen angel of AngelHousePress. Connect with Amanda on Twitter @KikiFolle or visit AmandaEarl.com for more information.

The Interview

1. What inspired you to write poetry?

I didn’t even realize I was writing poetry until my mid thirties. I scrawled on pads of paper from my parents’ workplaces, all kinds of confessional stuff and complaints and lists. I made notes on index cards about everyone I knew and filed them in a metal box. I just wrote. I didn’t label it. I heard nothing but poetry by men from early childhood and up, whether it was in school or recitations by my father: Shakespeare, Victorian morality poetry, Edward Leer. I liked the rhyming and the sound play, and the images, but I rarely related to it. I dismissed the thought of poetry from my head.

In my mid-thirties, I was going through a period of depression and searched the Internet for solace. I came across the poet Mary Oliver’s poem, Wild Geese, Lorna Crozier’s Carrots (https://jeveraspoetryanthology.weebly.com/carrots.html) poem and also Gwendolyn MacEwen’s fascinating and dark mythological poems. These excited me and made me realize that perhaps I was also writing what could be called poetry. I still wasn’t sure.

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

My father, I suppose, but it didn’t feel like an introduction. He was always reciting poetry to me as a child.

3. How aware were you of the dominating presence of older poets?

More like the domineering presence. Since school curricula for literature were dominated by dead white men, I knew nothing about women poets until I found them in my Internet search in the 90s. I wish I’d known about Plath and Sexton in my teenage years; although what darkness I would have dredged up back then under their influences… When I first started to realize I was writing poetry, it took me some time to find out about poets like Anne Carson who is willing to step out of traditional form to make poetry out of the long lost fragments of Sappho, accordion books about grief, little chapbooks placed in a box so readers can rearrange at will. Or Caroline Bergvall and her mesmerizing engagements with Old Norse. There’s just so much possibility out there for poetry and yet quite often the same white men, dead or alive, have their work published again and again and win prizes and are taught as the poetry that matters.

4. What is your daily writing routine?

According to Mason Currey in his book, Daily Rituals: Women at Work, the photographer Diana Arbus ritual was sex. (https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-daily-routines-10-women-artists-joan-mitchell-diane-arbus?fbclid=IwAR2fXdj7OUukk2c_-RUU8mxIhor8FRPaSWU3yJ0_f_W0t_DzUR8LQ3y3ej0) I usually start my day off with a good wank and at least an hour of pervy chat with a few random strangers. I shivered this morning after a particularly good orgasm. After that I drink Irish Breakfast tea, burn some incense and write or go outside, if it’s not too hot or cold, and wander about until I have no choice but to write. I carry a red journal with me for snippets of overheard conversation, some weird sound play that comes to me, or a doodle. My red journals are smeared in paint and tea stains.

5. What motivates you to write?

1. Lorca’s concept of the duende (https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Spanish/LorcaDuende.php) Death is near. I don’t want to be immortal, I just want to continue the conversation. I’m influenced by ghosts, such as Oscar Wilde and Djuna Barnes, Leonora Carrington, Jean Cocteau and Beatrice Wood.

2. Alienation. In some ways I live the standard North American life, but in others I don’t. I write and publish others full-time. I don’t have a nine to five job. I don’t drive. I don’t own property. I live downtown. My husband and I are in a passionate and open marriage. I write to reach out to that one kindred misfit in hope that they feel less alone. The Tragically Hip song “It’s a good life if you don’t weaken,” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwNVxvczgCs&feature=youtu.be) comes to mind. “Let’s get friendship right.”

6. What is your work ethic?

I follow three principles: whimsy, exploration and connection. I want to play; I want to learn new stuff and I want to write things that connect with those alienated by convention and the lonely. I punched a timecard as a late teen and I saw my parents punching those same damn cards. I loathe systems and routines and any attempts by external authorities to dictate my time, so I rebel against any system. I write because I breathe. It’s just part of me. Writing isn’t as tough as plumbing or surgery.

I serve the work rather than dictating what the work will be. I once spent three months learning about the sonnet because the manuscript I was working on had to be made up of sonnets, not because I wanted to but because the content required it somehow. I wrote three of the damn things and gave up. They were awful. That manuscript remains unpublished.

I try to remain grateful and humble to have the opportunity to write. Sometimes my work gets published, which is a huge honour. I try to be careful not to let my ego tell me how great I am, because I’m not. I’m just in the right place at the right time and have found the right publisher somehow. This happens rarely.

I try not to take up too much space and leave space for writers who do not have the benefits granted by white colonialist publishing policies and attitudes that continue to prevail. I try to promote and publish 2SLGBTQIA, BIPOC, and D/deaf and disabled writers and look for ways I can support them when I can. I don’t do this enough.

7. How do the writers you read when you were young influence you today?

I read the Exorcist, Mad Magazine, Archie Comics and Harlequin romance novels as a youngster. These works gave me a sense of irreverence that is important for my writing. In high school and university I studied French, German and Italian and finally got excited by literature. Dante made me fascinated with Heaven and Hell; Kafka made me fear insects; Baudelaire made me want to drink red wine. Rimbaud showed me that synaesthesisa, which I have, was not just something I experienced. Later I read Milton’s Paradise Lost. Early influencers of the long poem, I suppose, and the epic. I am writing an anti-epic these days. Red wine isn’t something I can stomach easily anymore. Now and then I’ll have a little Lagavulin in the tub.

8. Who of today’s writers do you admire the most and why?

Nathanaël for Je Nathanaël, for working in the spaces between genres and writing so beautifully of the body. Sandra Ridley for her ability to write long, mesmerizing poems and read them as if they are incantations. Christine McNair for syntactic daggers, sounds that are bitten off, and charm. Anne Carson for her sense of play and versatility. Canisa Lubrin for Voodoo Hypothesis, which is the only book she’s written so far, and it’s brilliant. I am awed by the skill in these poems, not just on a poetic level (diction, imagery, lineation, structure, balance) but also by the power of one writer’s willingness and ability to so effectively dismantle and bring to light the ongoing effects of racism while offering in-depth and tangible illustrations of the othered. Alice Notley for the Descent of Alette, a most extraordinary long poem. rob mclennan for his prolific writing and quiet poetry and bizarre wee stories. Amber Dawn for brave femme truths and incorporating subjects that are traditionally taboo in mainstream CanLit, such as sex work. Joshua Whitehead for the sheer invention and brilliance of Full Metal Indigiqueer which takes down the literary canon so skillfully. The writers in the anthology Stairs and Whispers: D/deaf and Disabled Poets Write Back Edited by Sandra Alland, Khairani Barokka & Daniel Sluman (http://ninearchespress.com/publications/poetry-collections/stairs%20and%20whispers.html) for the versatility and beauty of their writing. It’s good writing and more people should be aware of it. Ian Martin for self-deprecating comedy. Erín Moure for Elisa Sampedrin. Lisa Robertson for the gift of the sentence. Gary Barwin for his whimsy and willingness to play in numerous genres and media.

I wish Djuna Barnes was here. I’m always looking for a modern-day equivalent. Nightwood was an exquisite and poetic novel.

9. Why do you write, as opposed to doing anything else?

I don’t just write. I also play with paint, make visual poetry, which some might say is a form of writing, run two small presses, which do a bunch of things. I spend too much time on social media. I make countless lists. I watch a lot of films and tv. I listen to music. I wank. I fuck my husband. We cook glorious meals together. I go on long rambles and spend a lot of time in cafés. I cry and worry every day for the persecuted in this topsy turvy era where the Ogre in the House of White is making us all fear that the end of the world is close.

All these activities and emotions enter into my writing in some way.

10. What would you say to someone who asked you “How do you become a writer?”

I don’t know. I focus less on being a writer and more on writing. Writer sounds like a title and titles have a bunch of preconceived expectations I can’t satisfy. Same with poet. I just write.

But I guess, I’d tell them to be gentle on themselves, surround themselves with books, art, film and whatever inspires them. Ignore prescriptive rules, such as write what you know. Heather O’Neill, a fiction writer I admire, once said that for her to write, she has to be angry about something. At least that’s what I remember her saying at an Ottawa International Writers Festival event.

For me, I have to feel emotion of some sort, whether it is anger, sadness, love… I guess I would say to the person who wants to write that they are going to have to make sure that they don’t numb themselves. It’s easy in this era to want to numb ourselves against all the pain and suffering and power games going on, but when we numb ourselves, we don’t feel and if we don’t feel, it’s hard to respond. Writing, whether it’s directly political or not, is a response to what’s around us. I think it takes a great deal of empathy to write. It takes close listening and close watching.

Find a mentor. I’ve been fortunate in that rob mclennan has been extremely supportive of my work. He’s been honest when the stuff is shite. I still remember taking my first of his poetry workshops in 2006 and him telling me I was writing zombie poems.

He’s published many of my chapbooks through above/ground press and my book, Kiki through Chaudiere Books. He always encourages me to write and he has introduced me to many of the poets I mention in my list of influences and more. He does this not only for me, but for numerous others. It’s amazing!

11. Tell me about the writing projects you have on at the moment.

I was fortunate to have received a grant from the City of Ottawa for Beast Body Epic, a long poem that I began a few years after a major health crisis in 2009 and have been tinkering with ever since. So I’m going to finish tinkering and submit the manuscript for the fourth time toward the end of the year.

I have a smaller manuscript called The Milk Creature and Mother Poetry, inspired by Diana di Prima, one of the women active in the Beat poetry scene.

I’m working on The Vispo Bible, a life’s work to translate every chapter, every book, every verse of the Bible into visual poetry. I began in 2015 and have completed about 300 pages so far.

In 2018, I began work on a novel. Its working title is The Nightmare Dolls’ Imperfect Reunion. It’s about women, health, ageing, friendship, gender, and it has a helluva soundtrack. (https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5B1GAgN046EdtrBLXiNoni?si=NIbexI5mQqKnr54qfmJ7ZQ)

Amanda Earl is a Canadian poet, publisher, prose-writer, visual poet and editor who lives in Ottawa, Ontario. Her first and only poetry book so far is Kiki (Chaudiere Books, 2014). Amanda is the managing editor of Bywords.ca and the fallen angel of AngelHousePress. Connect with Amanda on Twitter @KikiFolle or visit AmandaEarl.com for more information.

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews: Amanda Earl F WORD WARNING Wombwell Rainbow Interviews I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me.

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feminism-quotes · 7 years

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Erica Jong

Erica Jong—novelist, poet, and essayist—has consistently used her craft to help provide women with a powerful and rational voice in forging a feminist consciousness. She has published 21 books, including eight novels, six volumes of poetry, six books of non-fiction and numerous articles in magazines and newspapers such as the New York Times, the Sunday Times of London, Elle, Vogue, and the New York Times Book Review. In her groundbreaking first novel, Fear of Flying (which has sold twenty-six million copies in more than forty languages), she introduced Isadora Wing, who also plays a central part in three subsequent novels—How to Save Your Own Life, Parachutes and Kisses, and Any Woman's Blues. In her three historical novels—Fanny, Shylock's Daughter, and Sappho's Leap—she demonstrates her mastery of eighteenth-century British literature, the verses of Shakespeare, and ancient Greek lyric, respectively. A memoir of her life as a writer, Seducing the Demon: Writing for My Life, came out in March 2006. It was a national bestseller in the US and many other countries. Erica’s latest book, Sugar in My Bowl, is an anthology of women writing about sex, has been recently released in paperback.Erica Jong was honored with the United Nations Award for Excellence in Literature. She has also received Poetry magazine's Bess Hokin Prize, also won by W.S. Merwin and Sylvia Plath. In France, she received the Deauville Award for Literary Excellence and in Italy, she received the Sigmund Freud Award for Literature. The City University of New York awarded Ms. Jong an honorary PhD at the College of Staten Island.Her works have appeared all over the world and are as popular in Eastern Europe, Japan, China, and other Asian countries as they have been in the United States and Western Europe. She has lectured, taught and read her work all over the world. A graduate of Barnard College and Columbia University's Graduate Faculties where she received her M.A. in 18th Century English Literature, Erica Jong also attended Columbia's graduate writing program where she studied poetry with Stanley Kunitz and Mark Strand. In 2007, continuing her long-standing relationship with the university, a large collection of Erica’s archival material was acquired by Columbia University’s Rare Book & Manuscript Library, where it will be available to graduate and undergraduate students. Ms. Jong plans to teach master classes at Columbia and also advise the Rare Book Library on the acquisition of other women writers’ archives. Calling herself “a defrocked academic,” Ms. Jong has partly returned to her roots as a scholar. She has taught at Ben Gurion University in Israel, Bennington College in the US, Breadloaf Writers’ Conference in Vermont and many other distinguished writing programs and universities. She loves to teach and lecture, though her skill in these areas has sometimes crowded her writing projects. “As long as I am communicating the gift of literature, I’m happy,” Jong says. A poet at heart, Ms. Jong believes that words can save the world.

#Erica Jong #feminist author #fqauthor

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