WoMen In Black

On Saturday, November 2, 2013, I was one of three poetry features at a poetry reading at the Riverside branch of the NY Public Library.  The other two were Evie Ivy and Penelope Maguffin.  Both are women I know from the NYC poetry circles.  We decided to dress in black.  There's a kid in me who loved the idea of matching colors with the others.  I don't have sisters, so this was a nice taste of that sort of thing.  We are each seasoned, lived, and with lots to poem about.

 

 

 

When I look at the above photo, I find it interesting that we all have long hair.  Most of my adult life, I kept my hair very short. 

 

    

  I'm in the green with the shortest hair in the photo.  It was easy.  I could comb my hair with my hand.  But during my separation, the guy who cut my hair well had to leave for a job with a pension.  He left what he loved, as so many have, out of fear for his older years.  I began to let my hair grow.  And grow.  It is more work, but it is my chance to enjoy having long hair.  As a youngster, I didn't like my hair.  Times were different and less types of looks were considered attractive, and I was as brainwashed as any other Barbie-owning American child.  I must insert here that before having any Barbies and Kens, my dear mother, a unique individual, sent away for a Barbie-like doll with a different name, and her hair was coarse.  I remember having such mixed feelings about the doll's hair.  Yet I knew deep down that my mother got me a doll whose hair was more like mine and hers.  I had trouble liking it in the age of Dippity-Do, Sun-In, ironing hair, using juice cans to set it straight, and doing whatever to get it long, straight, and, if possible, blonde.  Such wasted energy on not liking what one has.  Now I enjoy my hair and the freedom to do whatever I want with it.  Every now and then, I entertain the thought of cutting it again, but when I see the photo of the three of us, I'm glad I can still pull off this long-hair look.  

 

The other thing that comes to mind when I look at us being introduced by David Elsasser, is WoMen In Black.  We send poems out into the world for those open to them.  The movie would be different than Men In Black. 

 

Evie suggested we rotate for our reading.  I liked that, and Penelope decided to jump into it with us.  It turned out so well.  Considering it was a library and not a bar, and I was totally sober, I had so much fun.  The mic was good, so I didn't have to project my voice.  I was able to speak in a conversational way.  I had dug up old poems and edited them.  I read very new poems also.  Some were sad, touching, serious, but most were funny at least in part.  So there was laughter and applause.  The rotating helped keep it alive and moving.  Evie, me, Penelope.  I've heard a lot of Evie's work in the past but much of Penelope's was new to my ears.  We each enjoyed the experience so much.  The audience was soooooooo appreciative.

 

One of the people who approached me after the reading asked me where I read.  I said, "Wherever I'm asked," but I'm not out there as much as I'd like, and I went on to explain that I also do comedy and have two jobs to just exist.  Her reaction is what I loved.  She said what a shame it is that such a gifted person has to work so much to exist and not work as much on her craft.  Later it occurred to me that the man I had a child with and gave so many monogamous years to never said such a thing to me.  As high as I felt from the wonderful event, I am so capable of sinking fast again.  So I've been actively re-running the reading in my head.  I work at feeling decent.

 

A man named Fred, who I have met a few times before at another reading series, came over to me and asked if men really are such jerks (I think he said jerks.  If not, it was something along those lines.)  We talked for a while, and I said that I like mature men and that it had little to do with age.  I didn't need to explain anything to him.  He understood already.  He's not incapable of imagining life as someone other than himself.  He even said how much he doesn't even realize until he hears a voice like mine.  I'm so okay with that.  He can't realize everything without hearing from us.  He hears.  He lets it in and doesn't argue the validity of my reality.  That speaks worlds about him.  Sooooooo, of course, he's married.  Add to that, he behaves like he's married.  I like that in a person. 

 

A co-worker and friend, Richard, came to the reading to tape me since I don't have any video of me reading my poetry.  He enjoyed the whole thing.  I won't see him until Wednesday, so I am not able to include a video here today, but I can share a poem.

 

Urban Goddess

 

She's an urban goddess

has a woman home

rounded, shaped as a dome

stretch marks

worn as badges

veins and bellies bulge

talking and singing and laughing

abound; spontaneous shimmies

occur.  A home

menstrual flow celebrated

welcoming fertility and maturity

women's periods   

like the phases of the moon

not altered but respected.

A home -- girls safe, clits

protected as they were

physically designed to be.

A home -- boys and men welcome

to love, not rule.  She's

an urban goddess.

Let her in.

 

 

(c) Mindy Matijasevic