Strong Women

By Christine Kysely

My family is a family

Of strong women

Of that there is no doubt

These women

Have withstood

The challenges of their times.

All of life’s trials

The worst of the worst

History has not been kind

Deaths, rapes and murders

They have had to live with daily

Live with on their minds.

Unexpected circumstance

Have tested my ancestral women

And they somehow survived

And somehow they managed to live on

Sometimes all alone

And to go on and to thrive.

And now in the Halls of History

They can stand up and be counted

Among those women

Among the best of the best

Those who are still considered to be

Strong Women.

Copyright Christine A Kysely 2010 November 26,2010

(c) Copyright 2010 by Christine A Kysely, All Rights Reserved.

Image borrowed from everydayisaholiday.org

Edited poetry book by Caroline Kennedy.

Caroline Kennedy recently published a book of selected poems. The book includes poems about the following stages of women's lives: Falling in Love; Making Love; Breaking Up; Marriage; Love Itself; Work; Beauty, Clothes, and Things of This World; Motherhood; Silence and Solitude; Growing Up and Growing Old; Death and Grief; Friendship; How to Live.
Kennedy, C. (2011). She Walks in Beauty: A Woman's Journey Through Poems. New York, NY: Hyperion.

In addition to several other books, Ms. Kennedy also published The Best Loved Poems of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.

 Photo Credit: Borrowed from womensconference.org

Dream

By Priscilla Ahn

I was a little girl

alone in my little world

who dreamed of a little home for me

I played pretend between the trees

And fed my houseguests bark and leaves

And laughed in my pretty bed of green

I had a dream

That I could fly from the highest swing

I had a dream

Long walks in the dark

Through woods grown

Behind the park

I asked God who I’m s’posed to be

The stars smiled down on me,

God answered in silent reverie

I said a prayer and fell asleep

I had a dream

That I could fly from the highest tree,

I had a dream

Now I’m old and feeling grey

I don’t know what’s left to say

About this life I’m willing to leave

I lived it full and I lived it well,

There’s many tales I lived to tell

I’m ready now, I’m ready now

I’m ready now…

To fly from the highest wing

I had a dream

Song lyrics and music by Priscilla Ahn
Photo Credit: Borrowed from lastfm.com

Dutch

By Kay Ryan

Much of life
is Dutch
one-digit
operations
in which
legions of
big robust
people crouch
behind
badly cracked
dike systems
attached
by the thumbs
their wide
balloon-pantsed rumps
up-ended to the
northern sun
while, back
in town, little
black-suspendered
tulip magnates
stride around.

Ryan, K. (2000). Say Uncle. New York, NY: Grove Press.

Photo Credit: Peter DaSilva

Bad Day

By Kay Ryan

Not every day
is a good day
for the elfin tailor.

Some days
the stolen cloth
reveals what it
was made for:
a handsome weskit
or the jerkin
of an elfin sailor.
Other days
the tailor
sees a jacket
in his mind
and sets about
to find the fabric.
But some days
neither the idea
nor the material
presents itself;
and these are
the hard days
for the tailor elf.

Ryan, K. (2000). Say Uncle. New York, NY: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Photo Credit: Alan Dep

Poetry

By Don Paterson

In the same way that the mindless diamond keeps
one spark of the planet's early fires
trapped forever in its net of ice,
it's not love's later heat that poetry holds,
but the atom of the love that drew it forth
from the silence: so if the bright coal of his love
begins to smoulder, the poet hears his voice
suddenly forced, like a bar-room singer's -- boastful
with his own huge feeling, or drowned by violins;
but if it yields a steadier light, he knows
the pure verse, when it finally comes, will sound
like a mountain spring, anonymous and serene.

Beneath the blue oblivious sky, the water
sings of nothing, not your name, not mine.

Paterson, D. (2001). The White Lie; New and Selected Poetry. St. Paul, MN: Graywolf Press.

Ain't I a Woman?

By Sojourner Truth

Delivered 1851 at the Women's Convention in Akron, Ohio

Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that 'twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all this here talking about?

That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?

Then they talk about this thing in the head; what's this they call it? [member of audience whispers, "intellect"] That's it, honey. What's that got to do with women's rights or negroes' rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn't you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full?

Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men, 'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.

If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back , and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.

Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain't got nothing more to say.

Photo Credit: Borrowed from ontheissuesmagazine.com