#69 - for the love of women
Art by Walid Ebeid
Interview by Dorothy Parker
The ladies men admire, I’ve heard,
Would shudder at a wicked word.
Their candle gives a single light;
They’d rather stay at home at night.
They do not keep awake till three,
Nor read erotic poetry.
They never sanction the impure,
Nor recognize an overture.
They shrink from powders and from paints ...
So far, I’ve had no complaints.
Other poems by and about women I've enjoyed reading recently:
"One of the women greeted me.
I love you, she said. She didn’t
Know me, but I believed her,
And a terrible new ache
Rolled over in my chest,
Like in a room where the drapes
Have been swept back. I love you,
I love you, as she continued
Down the hall past other strangers,
Each feeling pierced suddenly
By pillars of heavy light." -from Wade in the Water by Tracy K. Smith
A wildness
swam inside our mothers,
desire through closed eyes,
a new child
wearing the red, wet mask of birth,
delivered into this land
already wounded,
stolen and burned
beyond reckoning." -from The History of Red by Linda Hogan
"...you ask your phone:
Does coffee make anxiety worse?
What are to-be verbs?
How long will 18 mg of Adderall last?
How to stop yourself from crying?
Answer: distract yourself with pain.
Sink your nails into your thighs.
Slam your hand in a car door.
Slap your jaw with a tightened fist
and laugh at how easy it used to be
to make yourself cry on purpose." -from All the Good Women are Gone by Susan Nguyen
"My mother is certain, and verbose in her monolingualism.
I struggle between my two languages-
one found, one forgotten.
All of us still fail to understand each other."
-from Family Tongue by Rahat Tasneem
Recommended Listening:
A Waltz For A Night - Julie Delpy
Natalia Lafourcade: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert
Links of the Week:
Meet Viola Smith, the World’s Oldest Drummer NASA Makes History After Successfully Launching First All-Female Spacewalk Patti Smith’s Imaginative Remedy for Insomnia Poet Morgan Parker’s LA Apartment TreeTop Barbie and The Last Biotic Frontier An essential guide by Lisa Congdon to help you find your artistic voice This essay on how Christine Hyung-Oak Lee fought postpartum depression with the help of bees
Instagram Loving: Priya Kuriyan Kanako Abe Nina Bachmann Rachel Campbell Ilana Glazer (I'm in love!) Sanskaari Sass
goodnight, rohini
