"Old Maids" by Sandra Cisneros

We’re winding down to the end of Women’s History month so I thought now would be a good time to squeeze in a poem by one of my favorite female writers/ poets. Enjoy!

Old Maids
By Sandra Cisneros

My cousins and I,
we don't marry.
We're too old
by Mexican standards.

And the relatives
have long suspected
we can't anymore
in white.

My cousins and I,
we're all old
maids at thirty.

Who won't dress children,
and never saints--
though we undress them.

The aunts,
they've given up on us.
No longer nudge--You're next.

Instead--
What happened in your childhood?
What left you all mean teens?
Who hurt you, honey?

But we've studied
marriages too long--

Aunt Ariadne,
Tia Vashti,
Comadre Penelope,
querida Malintzin,
Senora Pumpkin Shell--

lessons that served us well.

Found at: http://www.chicanas.com/omaids.html

from "My Emily Dickinson" by Susan Howe

If you love, like, or at least appreciate Emily Dickinson, this poem will give your brain something to mull over. Lots to think about here so take the poem slowly and enjoy.

from My Emily Dickinson
by Susan Howe

When I love a thing I want it and I try to get it. Abstraction of the particular from

the universal is the entrance into evil. Love, a binding force, is both envy and
emulation. HE (the Puritan God) is a realm of mystery and will always remain
unknowable, authoritiarian, unpredictable. Between revealed will and secret will
Love has been torn in two.

DUALISM: Pythagoras said that all things were divisible into two genera,
good and evil; in the genus of good things he classified all perfect things
such as light, males, repose, and so forth, whereas in the genus of evil
he classified darkness, females, and so forth.
(Thomas Aquinas, “On the Power of God,” p. 84)

Promethean aspiration: To be a woman and a Pythagorean. What is the communal
vision of poetry if you are curved, odd, indefinite, irregular, feminine. I go in
disguise. Soul under stress, thread of connection broken, fusion of love and
knowledge broken, visionary energy lost, Dickinson means this to be an ugly verse.
First I find myself a Slave, next I understand my slavery, finally I re-discover
myself at liberty inside the confines of known necessity. Gun goes on thinking of
the violence done to meaning. Gun watches herself watching.

Found at: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=238560

"A Woman Speaks" by Audre Lorde

Because Women's History Month is about recognizing all sorts of voices...

A Woman Speaks
by Audre Lorde

Moon marked and touched by sun
my magic is unwritten
but when the sea turns back
it will leave my shape behind.
I seek no favor
untouched by blood
unrelenting as the curse of love
permanent as my errors
or my pride
I do not mix
love with pity
nor hate with scorn
and if you would know me
look into the entrails of Uranus
where the restless oceans pound.

I do not dwell
within my birth nor my divinities
who am ageless and half-grown
and still seeking
my sisters
witches in Dahomey
wear me inside their coiled cloths
as our mother did
mourning.

I have been woman
for a long time
beware my smile
I am treacherous with old magic
and the noon's new fury
with all your wide futures
promised
I am
woman
and not white.


Found at: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=171291

"I dwell in Possibility" (466) by Emily Dickinson

To both make up for my recent lack of poetry posts and to make the most of Women's History Month before it's over, I'm imposing a new theme- poems by women. Not super unique but super exciting! And who better to keep Women's History Month moving along but Emily Dickinson? That's okay. I couldn't think of anyone else either...


I dwell in Possibility (466)
by Emily Dickinson

I dwell in Possibility –
A fairer House than Prose –
More numerous of Windows –
Superior – for Doors –

Of Chambers as the Cedars –
Impregnable of eye –
And for an everlasting Roof
The Gambrels of the Sky –

Of Visitors – the fairest –
For Occupation – This –
The spreading wide my narrow Hands
To gather Paradise –


Found at: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=182904

"Outside History" by Eavan Boland

Happy St. Patrick's Day!! I'm breaking slightly from the month’s theme (women writing about women), but still in keeping with Women’s History Month and as a nod to St. Patty’s Day/ the Irish, I've chosen a female, Irish poet. Plus, the poem is about history. Does that count? Either way, enjoy this beautiful poem and don’t forget to wear something green!

Outside History
by Eavan Boland

These are outsiders, always. These stars—
these iron inklings of an Irish January,
whose light happened
thousands of years before
our pain did; they are, they have always been
outside history.
They keep their distance. Under them remains
a place where you found
you were human, and
a landscape in which you know you are mortal.
And a time to choose between them.
I have chosen:
out of myth in history I move to be
part of that ordeal
who darkness is
only now reaching me from those fields,
those rivers, those roads clotted as
firmaments with the dead.
How slowly they die
as we kneel beside them, whisper in their ear.
And we are too late. We are always too late.

Found at: http://www.famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/eavan_boland/poems/1198

"Women" by May Swenson

Women and poetry lends itself easily and often to the realm of social commentary. What better way to start off your Monday? Still in keeping with our Women’s History month theme-- women poets writing about women-- we look at a poem that not only uses complex imagery and makes a strong social commentary, but visually does some interesting things on the page. I want so badly to post the poem “Women” May Swenson right here but as a blogger novice, I can’t for the life of me figure out how to keep the layout of the poem intact. I believe what you see on the page in integral to the poem, especially when the poem layout is so distinct. So please don’t miss out on this poem but visit … http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=178001 or just search "Women" by May Swenson. It should lead you right to the Poetry Foundation website. Maybe take a second and think about how breaking from the traditional down the page layout changes/ adds/ detracts from your reading. What does it mean in context with the content of the poem? Would the social commentary read differently if she adhered to the "rules" of traditional layout? I bet you can think of even more questions which is great because poems like this ask to be thought about. Enjoy!

"Eve's Design" by Moria Linehan

To continue with our Women’s History Month theme of women writing about women, this poem fits in nicely. If you have nothing to do today and are a bit on the nerdy side, take ten minutes and think about the rich images in this poem. Pay attention as the traditionally domestic,wholesome, and “womanly” act of knitting is transformed in the poem. How so? What does it become? Also, what is the role of Eve in this poem? Think on it for a minute and see what you come up with...

Eve's Design
by Moria Linehan

Then there's the Yemeni legend
of Eve in the Garden knitting
a pattern on the serpent's back,
the snake unfinished like the rest
of creation, the first woman
thinking to add design, a sheath
of interlocking diamonds and stripes
along that sensuous S,
knitting giving her time to learn
what's infinitely possible
with a few stitches, twisting cables,
hers a plan to mirror the divine
inner layer that can't be shed
no matter what it rubs up against.

Found at: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=30428