Women's Voices For Change

I love Lizette Woodworth Reese’s “All Hallows Night” because it bridges religions and cultures as a remembrance of people—family members, community heroes, saints, and martyrs—who have died.

“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.

“Thoughts” strikes me as a perfect poem to consider around the end of one year or the beginning of another as we take stock of what has come to pass, and make plans and resolutions for the future.

In today’s poem, “Poem,” by Joan Naviyuk Kane, the speaker’s search for a word in Inupiaq, the language of her mother, uncovers compounded losses—natural, cultural, ancestral, and personal—that have accrued over time and echo through generations.

In Patricia Smith’s exquisite collection 'Blood Dazzler,' I find myself drawn to the stories of resilience even more for the comfort and reassurance they provide. The durability of the collection speaks to the hope and lingering fear in this pandemic moment.

“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.

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.