“I Am Writing This in My Head,
My Hands Inside Gloves That Don’t Match,”
by Silvina López Medin
Silvina López Medin’s poem is from her newly published book 'Poem That Never Ends,' itself a study of loss, multiplicity, and containment in terms of form, language, and content.
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Two New Series Get Physical, Without Much Success
Here at Women’s Voices for Change, we’ve long lamented the fact that in Hollywood, women get much less opportunity behind the camera than men do. Although recent numbers have improved (since 2018, the number of top box office movies directed by women has more than doubled), there is still a long way to go before we see gender parity. One…
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“Private Collection,” by Shelley Wong
“Private Collection” by Shelley Wong perfectly captures the experience of museum-going. Standing in a museum gallery, our speaker sifts back through other galleries, thoughts, and experiences as a woman and as a partner, a private (re)collection of sorts.
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Carte Postale De Cannes
Of the 24 films eligible for the Palme d’Or, only 4 were directed by women. This is disappointing, given the gains we’ve seen domestically over the past three years.
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“Underneath the Cuento,”
by Leticia Hernandez-Linares
The homophone of telling and counting speaks to the stories underlying my poems, to the urgency that I need to tell them so they can count. The “underneath” is silence, family secrets and traumas, multiple languages, music. — Leticia Hernández-Linares
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Two Emmas, Three Dalmatians, and 101 Reasons to Love ‘Cruella’
Cruella de Vil had incredible style and a couple of evil minions at her beck and call. She was certainly a feminist, she was all-Disney, and if she turns out to be more anti-heroine than heroine, well, that’s part of the fun.
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“Death by Chocolate,” by Sandra Beasley
This poem draws attention to two convenient plot points. One is glibly introducing the death of a woman as a narrative catalyst; the other is the crisis of an anaphylactic reaction, invoked without any regard for the lived experience.
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‘Chasing Childhood’ — A Helicopter Mother Repents
The loss of childhood fun as we knew it isn’t just something to feel wistful about. 'Chasing Childhood' points out that the disappearance of free play can have tangible and terrifying results.
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Ordinary Psalms
by Julia B. Levine
A major theme in 'Ordinary Psalms' is the speaker’s incipient loss of sight, a condition with rich metaphorical possibilities for the blindness of humanity in the abstract and also more concretely in recent American political cycles.
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‘In the Heights,’ The Fiesta We Need Right Now
'In the Heights' tells the story of a fast-disappearing neighborhood of working people, mostly Latin-American immigrants, who embrace their culture; add color and music, love and laughter to their city; and get along improbably well
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“Portent with Moonset & Blackbirds,”
by Kelly Cressio-Moeller
As a visual artist and poet, Kelly Cressio-Moeller knows what she is leveraging when she evokes the color blue in the title of her debut poetry collection, 'Shade of Blue Trees' -- a word that describes not just color but also emotion and language.
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‘Hacks’: The Good, The Bad, and The Very Funny
'Hacks' is smart and funny. It’s often silly but has meaningful undertones. Best of all, it’s a chance to watch an accomplished pro paired up with a promising newcomer.
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“You Bring Out the Emerging QTPOC (Queer Transgender Person of Color) Poet in Me,”
by Yeva Johnson
In today’s poem by Yeva Johnson, the word “emerging” is expansive, busting through conventions, resisting binaries, and declaring an evolving sense of self that encompasses a complex life, fully lived.
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Three Talented Directors Look at
Young Women’s Choices
These films are clearly arguing for a system in which young women can have more agency over their own bodies and reproductive health.
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“In Line to Vote on Our Future Climate,” by Meg Day
The poem speaks from the present, when climate disaster is incipient but not yet realized, when we still “did not know to fear” the sun. It poses images of lushness and life against those of aridity and death, allowing readers to draw their own inevitable conclusions about what we hope for our planet.
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‘Amy Tan: Unintended Memoir,’
The Story Behind The Gifted Storyteller
Amy Tan made a lasting imprint on the world of literature. She shattered a glass ceiling for Asian-American, as well as other immigrant group storytellers; she helped Hollywood expand its depictions of Asian women beyond stereotypes.
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Poems by Rajzel Żychlińsky
The three poems here by Rajzel Żychlińsky all express how the Holocaust shadowed her life, forming for her what she describes as a “fourth dimension,” as if it invented its own physics and warped reality itself.
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‘Picture A Scientist,’ A Powerful Documentary And Call for Change
'Picture a Scientist,' while finely crafted, beautifully filmed, and thoroughly engaging, is a sobering film. In fact, it would be downright depressing if each of our heroines hadn’t found her own way to overcome the nearly insurmountable obstacles she faced solely on the basis of sex.
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‘No Small Gift’ by Jennifer Franklin
In these sometimes-painful poems, beauty is the balm that allows readers to understand what the speaker has experienced and to approach those experiences close-up but without getting overwhelmed.
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‘Handmaid’s Tale’ Season Four:
June is Busting Out All Over
As a feminist living through the past few years, 'The Handmaid’s Tale' provides a startling object lesson in what could happen if/when women are seen as “less than” and as mere “vessels” for the unborn.
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Karen Benke: “Spring Cleaning”
"Another part of the poem’s process was in thinking through what it means to really, truly forgive forever: forgive ourselves, forgive another human. How it’s a gift for both people." - Karen Benke
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About My Mother
I write about my mother to fill the gap she left, to attenuate my orphanhood, to keep her with me, and because I need to know who she was in order to know who I am.
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Moms at the Movies
Happy Mother’s Week! Whether you watch with a mother or someone who made you a mother, you’ll find these titles an excellent reminder of maternal strength, courage, conviction — and sometimes comedy and complications.
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[Mother’s Day]: “Dusk” by Tracy K. Smith
I chose “Dusk” by Tracy K. Smith for its frank expression of the double-edged sword that is motherhood (parenthood, really): We adore our children more than life itself, and if we do a good job of raising them, they one day will abandon us.
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