Within the four walls of this library
sit three walls packed into the corner;
shelves, stuffed full of books with dog-eared pages
and slip-disc’d spines and fraying edges,
and a big white sign, which dangles from the ceiling
like a megabat hung on a cave mouth, sleeping and dreaming,
the word “NONFICTION” is inscribed on its countenance,
adjacent to signs shouting “MYSTERY” and “SCIENCE
FICTION” and “FANTASY” and “ROMANCE”
and a thousand other sorts of words
for myth and fabrication. But in this corner
live the rest, the et ceteras, the miscellaneous,
the kingdom of protists; for instance, care for some ethics?
Marx’s manifesto is stacked lazily beside a heap of essays by Rand;
you can practically see the two of them, shaking hands
uneasily, the will to never understand already forming
in their brains, and others yet remain;
Capote and the Clutters share shelf space
with the Mansons, hiding helter skelter behind
gnostic gospels and silent springs and a thousand
dreams for Freud to interpret (translated
from German for your convenience); nearby,
Orwell sings war songs in Catalan, accompanied
by the universe’s most elegant superstrings,
and the caged birds, singing of freedom,
harmonizing a melodious cacophony with the song
of the executioner. Butler criticizes his performance,
and she probably would have anyway, but Friedan thinks
he has a certain sort of mystique and Dawkins offers his own critique,
going on about genes and memes, extinction and delusion, but
not hallucinations—Sacks makes the distinction; let us continue
to praise famous men, and their children after them,
these naked apes, with minds so ***** that
they’re riddled with the emperors of all maladies; oh, Morris
Kinsey and Mukherjee could tell you all about these things,
maybe over lunch with Schlosser or dinner with Pollan,
minglings with Machiavelli over affairs of the state,
or affairs of space and a brief history of time; but,
if you're feeling too full to eat, or to pray, or to love,
ask Frankl what to do, let him change your life
with words from decades yore as he keeps on
his search for meaning just like every man before, at least
that's the case when these boys’ lives weren’t preoccupied
by artful war or bright and shining lies. And here,
by the holy bookend, lies some old and antiquated glossary
which lost most of its “glossy” many years ago,
for one flip through the pages will catalogue the changes
between what we thought we knew about the stars
and our bodies and doomsday as recently
as your last birthday, and all the things that everyone says
we now know that we know; speak,
memory, remember all you can
about this endless, sundry cosmos, and
the microcosms that it boasts; bury my heart,
if not at Wounded Knee, then maybe at this
library, where comprehension and speculation
find themselves in coexistence, packed into a single
point resembling the genesis, and fear and hope
take dueling forms, those of fact and mystery;
and now all that’s left to do is read,
until the end of history.

The inadequate bookshelf that sat near the door
that my sister used to call her own was
mostly made up of adolescent reads,
books better suited for preteen girls rather than
intellectually budding young ladies—
juvenile vocabularies and simple, non-complex
plot lines do little to craft and create
worldly, knowledgeable women.

I thought I must spring clean the
naiveté away and replace it with
the works of great authors like
Sylvia Plath
                        Simone de Beauvoir
                                                              Virginia Woolf
                        Margaret Atwood
Betty Friedan;
ingenious femme fatales that cut down
to the brittled bones of the misogynists
and burned their marrow along with the
ashes of bras and aprons and 350 degree oven heat.  

Growing up, to me, seemed like a wonderful epiphany
chock-full of ideas and opinions and
clever, ironic remarks that chased satirical witticisms
like felines to rodents and wolves to deer—
being an adult would guarantee me a say,
a vote
           prior 1920’s America
                                                  play dress up as a suffragette
           women’s rights
femininity personified by dolls in plastic houses.

To be eighteen-years-old,
the goal, the legality, the bright light at the end of the tunnel;
the official womanhood it would bestow upon me
seemed like something almost tangible
with the way that it loomed over my head.

Get good marks
graduate high school
travel back in time sixty years
meet a nice boy
become a “good wife”
have dinner ready by five
bear two beautiful heirs
clean up the messes left in the kitchen
fast-forward to the twenty-first century
go to a good college
find a stable career
settle down if the fancy strikes you
live non-docile and full of passion—
the parallelism of times are severely
di
    lap
          i
            dat
                 ­ ed.

1950’s America would never be a home for me
because I am much too wild to be contained.

Personal Perspective Poem (Spoken Word)
5/30/2014

To the women who say they do not need feminism,
for fear of being seen as whiny or sensitive,
or for whatever reasons I may not comprehend as a mere male ally.
Please have it in you to look beyond your personal perspective.

To recognize that eye to eye, you do not see other women.
That there are those who cannot see,
acid dripped down their eyelids,
like a tear that burns their skin as much as the insides swell,
all just for wanting to reject a stranger's ****** advances.

To recognize the backs bruised,
bloodied buddies removed from bodies.
That little life extensions not allowed to live,
just for being born girls or maybe boys,
or somewhere in between sometimes.

Please, to recognize that no matter how inner your beauty is,
no matter how many months you spend spinning a cocoon,
so that you may emerge an empowered butterfly,
there will be evil spiders who prey and wish to restrain your flying wings,
in the entanglement of their webs.  
Spinning **** like it is the finest of silks.

To recognize a young female's suicide pressured by her peers,
either called fat, considered undesirable as a volcanic eruption of ash,
and coal, as dark as the hearts of those who have rejected her.
Or she was of dark skin which you might consider just as bad,
because your personal perspective probably left behind women of color.

To recognize that *** should be a sweet something,
not a spontaneously evoked sitting or standing or shouting and screaming,
inside silently, but knowing nobody will hear because you fear,
how they might react in the middle of a frat party,
where **** culture runs rampant,
ripping open limbs to toss in the trash with ****** wrappers,
but blame it on the ******* empty beer bottles.

To recognize that discussions about female TV characters,
and video games, are not about the pixels on the screen,
but the pixels ingrained in young girls' minds, an afterimage.
Left as if women who don't feel they have a place in this world,
do not deserve the avatars they want to represent their digital escape.
Such a simple request, please give her character armor suitable for battle,
her ******* need not be exposed to archers' arrows,
or a swordsman's stab, plunging carelessly into cleavage.

To recognize that commercial prostitution isn't something to sneer at,
when our society prostitutes women in commercials.  
Selling burgers that look like toxic bombs,
you are actually being advertised a buffet of *******.  
Selling beer with a wet white t-shirt contest,
drinks shouldn't be poured on anyone other than a **** at a bar.  
-
Climbing views in ****** slip videos trending on YouTube,
for a moment not worth the notice of any hash tag other than #YesAllWomen.
All of this shameless showing of the human anatomy,
as though it were a product.
Yet we can't seem to get behind feeding a baby the nutrients it needs,
anywhere in public other than an unsanitary bathroom stall!

To recognize the pioneers of past and present,
whose names now whispered in the footnotes of history textbooks,
can't be screamed loud enough at you!  
Shouting, Nellie Bly cannot save you if you voluntarily are a lunatic.  
Shouting, Mary Wollstonecraft cannot avert,
the monstrous male gaze you feel on your *** as you meander,
if you do not join her tribe as an Amazon Warrior of the Pen.  
-
Shouting, Betty Friedan cannot persuade you to liberate yourself,
if you do not think there is anything mystical about feminine mystique.  
Shouting, Laura Bates' 2012 Everyday Sexism Project,
in this modern fourth wave of feminism will become useless.
If you let it wash over you like another small wave,
in an ocean of daily sexist struggles you deny exist,
and blame on anomalies like the mental health of a certain shooter.  
-
Shouting, Kitty Genovese who screamed at everyone.
They watched but they didn't help. 
They watched but they didn't help.  
They watched but they didn't help.
And now shouting at you,
you are watching, but not helping.

Most importantly, to recognize the up and coming feminists,
of the future, with whom you do not identify,
because you think you don't need feminism.
To recognize those who will have to fight so **** hard,
to give you the privilege to be such an *******.
But that's just my personal perspective.

I am that feminist that cites Betty Friedan in her arguments
Who will tell you to bite your tongue if you think women have equal rights
I am that liberal who stands up for the rights of others
While preaching about white privilege
I am that democrat who goes on Marxist rants
And looks kindly upon socialistic programs
I am that American who finds kinks in the system
But also deeply loves my country.
I am that *****, *****, ****
Who thinks I should have the right to my own body
And the government should not
I am that student who thinks the education system is ****** up
And prays for future generations because the common core is going to fail them
I am that Christian who refuses to associate with the Republican Party
But loves God with all her heart.
I am that loud-mouth who will tell you to check yourself
Before you tell a **** joke
I am that activist who will die fighting for her cause
And I will love every second of it.

I watched “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” last night - we’re going to be reading Truman Capote’s book after the break and I wanted to start thinking about it. The movie rewrites Truman Capote’s story, turning it into a romcom, completely eliminating the book's gay themes. I’d seen ‘Breakfast’ before, but now I’m a little older, and as a single woman, I can better appreciate it. I’m looking forward to studying its socio-****** themes. These are some first thoughts.

Let’s take the opening of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” The images are iconic and some of the most widely repeated in pop-culture today (Hello, ubiquitous dorm room decor), but they’re never used in a way consistent with their function in the film. Instead of seeing a horribly depressed girl who has nothing left in her life but pure escapism, people see a beautiful woman with apparent access to luxury.

When “Breakfast” came out (in 1961) there was a sense, within the press and wider public, that even a neutered version of Holly Golightly represented a cinematic moral nadir that posed a threat to society. Whether Holly was a “moral character” was up for debate in countless reviews of the film. Today, this seems absurd.

Today, Holly is seen as an aspirational figure. With her opera gloves, her intricate updo, pearls and Givenchy little black dress, she looks like someone who belongs at Tiffany’s (of course, the casting the euro-elegant Audrey Hepburn didn’t hurt). Truman Capote wanted Marilyn Monroe as Holly - that would have been a very different movie.

Watching the film, I was struck with how contemporary Holly felt. She seems so familiar - so similar to the countless imitations we’ve seen since. People watching the movie for the first time today may be underwhelmed, but Holly seems so contemporary now, because she was so ahead of the curve back then (just over 60 years ago).

If you look at the popular romantic comedies that surrounded ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’, like “Pillow talk,’ ‘Gigi,’ and ‘Giget’ - their leading ladies were nothing like Holly. Being a heroine in those films meant you strived for marriage, you saved yourself for your one true love and, as a woman, you avoided certain subjects altogether. They imply happiness only comes from following a certain good girl ethos.

An example of what could happen to a girl, if she strayed from that path, was shown in Elia Kazan’s ‘Splendor in the Grass’ which also came out in ‘61. Its theme is the consequences of ****** repression, and it outlines a specific cinematic binary. There are good girls and bad girls. The bad girls were usually presented as sad and mentally unstable - and they paid for their sins in the end - usually by dying by some karmic punishment (car wrecks usually).

Holly sits somewhere in between good and bad, complicating the cinematic binary. Because Audrey’s elegance plays her as classy, warm and accessible, she doesn’t come across as a dangerous wild child - although she makes all of the bad girl choices - like partying, drinking and having ***.

For women who grew up in the repressive 1950s, Holly represented a new path forward. Holly lived on her own, she didn’t crave marriage above all else, she didn’t want to live in a cage, and she managed to have a good time without being victimized or doomed. Holly was noticeably different. The pill came out in May of 1960 (one of the watershed events in human history). Holly was Hollywood's first post-pill heroine, representing the ****** revolution before Betty Friedan’s ‘Feminine Mystique’.