The Huntington Library recently revealed this cover page from brilliant science fiction legend & Afro-Futurism pioneer Octavia Butler’s personal notebook, which was discovered in their archive:
via huntingtonblogs.org
“This is my life. I write bestselling novels.” **CHILLS** Continue reading
Filed under Books + Literature
ALL THE FEMINIST POETS features a single poem and an interview from a feminist poet that we love.
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Elline Lipkin is currently a Research Scholar with UCLA’s Center for the Study of Women. She also teaches poetry for Writing Workshop Los Angeles. Her first book, The Errant Thread, was chosen by Eavan Boland for the Kore Press First Book Award, and her second book Girls’ Studies was published by Seal Press. After many peripatetic years spent in all regions of the US and abroad, she now lives in Los Angeles.
La Sorcière
In literal French: a sorceress, a witch, also slang for any older,
unmarried woman. In French custom, a sorcière is also the name
for a simple band worn as a safeguard above a wedding ring.
It curls,
a thin slice of dun moon, its pressed lips
un-made-up against the stars’ hoyden brass.
And lines,
a tin wrinkle marring the stone’s set face,
a pucker of grey band capping the light’s fall.
It twists,
the concierge against her 6 a.m. broom, restless to sweep
two sets of 4 a.m. prints, fugitives fled past her door.
And taunts,
the loose gleam off a crinoline, a fille de joie’s indolent wink,
bordered by the nun’s stern wimple, the crone’s weird glance.
It sets,
flash status against the spinster’s slow fade, last aunt,
the mystery within the sealed attic’s rat-a-tat-tat.
Then pairs,
two cards pulled side by side from the arcana,
the diamond’s naive reach, the queen’s argentine pall.
*** Continue reading
Filed under All The Feminist Poets, Interviews
In the past year or so, something has shifted in our culture in how we’re talking about periods. We recently saw women responding to Donald Trump’s misogynistic comments about news anchor Megan Kelly by live-tweeting their periods at him, and artist Sarah Levy created a portrait of Trump in menstrual blood, and both of these items got a good amount of mainstream media coverage. Over the summer, the story of Kiran Gandhi, a woman who ran the London Marathon while bleeding freely, was being shared widely online, and earlier this year there was some uproar about artist Rupi Kaur’s images of herself with period stains being removed from Instagram. The Atlantic did that piece about why women hide their tampons, and we’ve seen menstrual product marketers playing into women’s interest in more “real” period talk for a while now. And of course there’s the fact that every time I’m in the subway, I see ads for “underwear for women with periods,” which, as far as subway ads go, makes my commute feel kinda like a surreal feminist utopia.
Not to say that we don’t still have a long way to go to undo our culture’s widespread period shame mentality, but lately it feels like menstruation is getting talked about more openly and honestly than ever before. Maybe we’re lashing out at an administration that’s waging a war on women’s reproductive rights. Or maybe this new cultural shift toward period positivity is just another example of how feminism has been recently more accepted (co-opted, even?) by the mainstream media. Whatever the reason, I’m pretty sure it’s safe to say that periods have been having somewhat of a renaissance on the internet—and it’s about time.
Filed under Art + Comics, Books + Literature, We Were There
WEIRD SISTER is turning one!!! Come celebrate one year of feminist literary + pop culture commentary with READINGS, DANCING, a FEMINIST COSTUME CONTEST + more!
When: Friday, October 30th, 8pm.
Where: Greenpoint Heights, 278 Nassau Ave, Brooklyn, NY.
Readings by:
Emily Brandt
Marisa Crawford
Cathy de la Cruz
Amanda K Davidson
Naomi Extra
Becca Klaver
Caolan Madden
Christopher Soto
Jennifer Tamayo
+ more readers TBD
Followed by terrifyingly awesome tunes by DJ OMG!
$5 suggested donation — no one turned away. 21+
Check out the Facebook event page here. (And find amazing feminist costume-inspo here!)
See you there!!! ♥ ♥ ♥
Image via Caroline Gormley
OMG you guys—so, I’m getting caught up on The Bachelorette for tonight’s FINALE!!! and just needed to report back on some important findings from the “Men Tell All” episode that aired last Monday! So like, color me shocked-as-fuck—my jaw is literally hanging open; YOU ARE NOT GOING TO BELIEVE THIS: I learned on “The Men Tell All” that Kaitlyn had the extremely rare and shocking experience of being a female public figure who was slut-shamed and harassed on the internet! She even received death threats! Continue reading
Filed under Everything Else, Movies + TV
Via the Poetry Foundation website:
“I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by wedding planners,dieting, in shapewear,dragging themselves in cute outfits through the freezer section for thesemifreddo bender,blessed innovative cloister girl pin-ups burning to know the rabbi ofelectricity in poverty, obedience, in the dream stick of opium and thegreen Wi-Fi fuse,”
Read the whole poem here and in the latest issue of Poetry magazine.
Filed under Books + Literature
I realized something this past week: The Bachelorette is my favorite show. I can’t say why, and I don’t know that I’ll always feel this way, but like drunkenly pulling smarmy, ugly leather jacket-clad Nick into your Ireland hotel room in a feverish passion, the heart wants what the heart wants. And this week, I’ve just wanted The Bachelorette.
As a show, The Bachelor is a really straightforward narrative of patriarchy: there’s a single boring white dude, and 30 women with blonde highlights and unthreatening careers fighting over him. The Bachelorette, however, is more of a mind-fuck. It more or less always brings us the same tired cliches about hetero romance and gender, the same negative stereotypes and narrow views of womanhood as its brother program, but it’s all wrapped up in a kind of faux female empowerment—a crowd of HOT TOPLESS GUYS with SIX-PACKS, OMG, fawning over one lucky single gal in a glorious triumph for feminism and equal opportunity. This is our turn, ladiesssss!
Sluttiness montage via Inquisitr.com
For a brief moment on this past week’s episode though, it felt like it kind of was. There was indeed a tiny glimmer of feminism, in which the show decided to cater to Kaitlyn’s sluttiness. To be perfectly clear, by saying sluttiness I of course am joking about the double standards that the show and our horrid patriarchal culture perpetuate around female sexuality; by Kaitlyn’s sluttiness I do of course mean her Totally Healthy Female Sexuality. The show saw that Kaitlyn was being unapologetically sexual, and they did some helpful rearranging to cater to it. Continue reading
Filed under Movies + TV
A bunch of us weird sisters are launching Geri Kim’s new chapbook THINGS I’D LET YOU DO TO ME (Recreation League) tonight in NYC! Come out for readings + killer jams! Continue reading
Filed under Books + Literature, Events
Oh to be a teen in the age of Tumblr. Pretty-on-pink drawings by anonymous artist Ambivalently Yours thoroughly soothe and vindicate my inner teenage girl with reminders that it’s more than okay to be sensitive, emotional, complicated, and unabashedly “girly.” Ambivalently says, “I want my art to be about all of us boldly undecided girls.” Here are a few of my favorites:
Filed under Art + Comics, Everything Else
This week, Caitlyn Jenner’s Vanity Fair cover brought important responses from Laverne Cox and Janet Mock, among others. And the conversation continued with the hashtag #MyVanityFairCover.
The Lambda Literary Awards announced its 2015 winners this week. Congrats to all the winners and honorees! Continue reading
Filed under Rah! Rah! Roundup
