Women's Voices For Change

“Private Collection,” by Shelley Wong

By Amanda Moore

“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.

Film & Television

Carte Postale De Cannes

By Alexandra MacAaron

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.

Poetry

“Underneath the Cuento,”
by Leticia Hernandez-Linares

By Maxine Flasher-Düzgünes

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

Film & Television

Two Emmas, Three Dalmatians, and 101 Reasons to Love ‘Cruella’

By Alexandra MacAaron

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.

Poetry

“Death by Chocolate,” by Sandra Beasley

By Rebecca Foust

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.

Film & Television

‘Chasing Childhood’ — A Helicopter Mother Repents

By Alexandra MacAaron

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.

Poetry

Ordinary Psalms
by Julia B. Levine

By Rebecca Foust

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.

Film & Television

‘In the Heights,’ The Fiesta We Need Right Now

By Alexandra MacAaron

'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

Poetry

“Portent with Moonset & Blackbirds,”
by Kelly Cressio-Moeller

By Amanda Moore

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.

Film & Television

‘Hacks’: The Good, The Bad, and The Very Funny

By Alexandra MacAaron

'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.

Poetry

“You Bring Out the Emerging QTPOC (Queer Transgender Person of Color) Poet in Me,”
by Yeva Johnson

By Amanda Moore

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.

Film & Television

Three Talented Directors Look at
Young Women’s Choices

By Alexandra MacAaron

These films are clearly arguing for a system in which young women can have more agency over their own bodies and reproductive health.

Poetry

“In Line to Vote on Our Future Climate,” by Meg Day

By Rebecca Foust

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.

Books · Film & Television

‘Amy Tan: Unintended Memoir,’
The Story Behind The Gifted Storyteller

By Alexandra MacAaron

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.

Poetry

Poems by Rajzel Żychlińsky

By Susan Cohen

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.

Film & Television

‘Picture A Scientist,’ A Powerful Documentary And Call for Change

By Alexandra MacAaron

'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.

Poetry

‘No Small Gift’ by Jennifer Franklin

By Rebecca Foust

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.

Film & Television

‘Handmaid’s Tale’ Season Four:
June is Busting Out All Over

By Alexandra MacAaron

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.

Poetry

Karen Benke: “Spring Cleaning”

By Maxine Flasher-Düzgünes

"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

Family & Friends

About My Mother

By Nancy A. Lane

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.

Film & Television

Moms at the Movies

By Alexandra MacAaron

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.

Poetry

[Mother’s Day]: “Dusk” by Tracy K. Smith

By Rebecca Foust

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.

Film & Television

Olympia Dukakis: A Life Well Lived On Stage and Screen

By Alexandra MacAaron

Olympia Dukakis will be remembered fondly by millions of movie fans — and for good reason. But it’s all that she brought to the stage as well as screen that can really be described as her life’s work.

Poetry

M. Soledad Caballero: “The Myths We Live”

By Amanda Moore

Though themes and narrative evolve, “The Myths We Live” is not about just one thing, and this expansiveness is enhanced by a form that inherently offers at least twenty perspectives—kaleidoscopic indeed.