For Adrienne Rich, an inspiration

 Adrienne Rich has just died and it is a sad loss. She was a person who fought for what's right and truthful. She was a seeker of justice, of equality, of Peace. She was an amazing woman and a wonderful poet who spoke of the writer’s obligation “not to fake it, not to practice a false innocence, not pull the shades down on what’s happening next door or across town.”

In a 1984 speech she summed up her reason for writing — and, by loud unspoken implication, her reason for being — in just seven words. What she and her sisters-in-arms were fighting to achieve, she said, was simply this: “the creation of a society without domination.”(source: The New York Times)

FOR THE DEAD by Adrienne Rich

I dreamed I called you on the telephone
to say: Be kinder to yourself
but you were sick and would not answer

The waste of my love goes on this way
trying to save you from yourself

I have always wondered about the left-over
energy, the way water goes rushing down a hill
long after the rains have stopped

or the fire you want to go to bed from
but cannot leave, burning-down but not burnt-down
the red coals more extreme, more curious
in their flashing and dying
than you wish they were
sitting long after midnight
  
And now the poet herself  reads her poem "What Kind of Times Are These." Part of the Poetry Everywhere project airing on public television. Produced by David Grubin Productions and WGBH Boston, in association with the Poetry Foundation. Filmed at the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival. For more information, visit http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/poetryeverywhere/.

There's a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows uphill

and the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadows

near a meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted

who disappeared into those shadows.

I've walked there picking mushrooms at the edge of dread, but don't be fooled

this isn't a Russian poem, this is not somewhere else but here,

our country moving closer to its own truth and dread,

its own ways of making people disappear.

I won't tell you where the place is, the dark mesh of the woods

meeting the unmarked strip of light—

ghost-ridden crossroads, leafmold paradise:

I know already who wants to buy it, sell it, make it disappear.

And I won't tell you where it is, so why do I tell you

anything? Because you still listen, because in times like these

to have you listen at all, it's necessary

to talk about trees.

Adrienne Rich by Alison Bechdel

Happy Women's Day!

Let's celebrate International Women's Day , which is tomorrow, March 8th, with an homage to a great woman and human being. A woman who rose in spite of the things against her for not only was she a woman in the 19th century but also black and a former slave.
Sojourner Truth was an an African-American abolitionist and women's rights activist. She was born into slavery, but escaped with her infant daughter to freedom in 1826.She had to leave her other children behind because they were not legally freed in the emancipation order until they had served as bound servants into their twenties. She later said:

"I did not run off, for I thought that wicked, but I walked off, believing that to be all right."

She was also one of the first black women to go to court against a white man and win the case.
In 1851 she attended the Ohio Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio where she delivered her famous speech on racial inequalities,  "Ain't I a Woman". Marius Robinson, who attended the convention and worked with Truth, recorded his version of the speech in the June 21, 1851, issue of the Anti-Slavery Bugle.
^"One of the most unique and interesting speeches of the convention was made by Sojourner Truth, an emancipated slave. It is impossible to transfer it to paper, or convey any adequate idea of the effect it produced upon the audience. Those only can appreciate it who saw her powerful form, her whole-souled, earnest gesture, and listened to her strong and truthful tones. She came forward to the platform and addressing the President said with great simplicity: "May I say a few words?" Receiving an affirmative answer, she proceeded:"

---

 Ain't I A Woman?

Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that 'twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all this here talking about?

That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?

Then they talk about this thing in the head; what's this they call it? [member of audience whispers, "intellect"] That's it, honey. What's that got to do with women's rights or negroes' rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn't you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full?

Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.

If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.

Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain't got nothing more to say.


In the following video, Poet Alice Walker (author of The Color Purple) reads the 1851 speech as part of a reading from Voices of a People's History of the United States (Howard Zinn and Anthony Arnove,) November 11, 2006 in Berkeley, California.

WORLD BOOK DAY 2012

World Book Day is the biggest celebration of its kind, anywhere. Millions and millions of book vouchers given out, great free books for kids, excitement everywhere (on blogs, in newspapers, on TV and in schools, libraries and, of course, bookshops), people coming together (including lots and lots of young readers) in a big, loud, happy celebration of reading.
We can join in the celebration from Spain by downloading the brand new World Book Day App  for iPhone, iPad and iPod touch on the iTunes store, the low, low price of absolutely FREE!
It includes six brilliant short stories written especially for World Book Day by some of the best Young Adult authors in the world!

Let's celebrate some more with this poem by Dr Seuss:

I Can Read With My Eyes Shut!
Dr. Seuss

I can read in red. I can read in blue.
I can read in pickle color too.
I can read in bed, and in purple. and in brown.
I can read in a circle and upside down!
I can read with my left eye. I can read with my right.
I can read Mississippi with my eyes shut tight!
There are so many things you can learn about.
But…you’ll miss the best things
If you keep your eyes shut.
The more that you read, the more things you will know
The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.
If you read with your eyes shut you’re likely to find
That the place where you’re going is far, far behind
SO…that’s why I tell you to keep your eyes wide.
Keep them wide open…at least on one side.