The following women have used social media
outlets to convey their poetry and the poems discussed here establish a
feminist message.
This young woman introduces herself on her Tumblr profile as an 18-year-old named Hali, but that she prefers the name Rose. She states that she is “a little lost in life right now. Okay, okay you caught me…I’m a lot lost.” While she makes this claim, her bio seems to reveal someone who is quite sure of herself and her interests, including that she loves animals and the band Vance Joy. When I go to her writing, I’m immediately struck by a long prose-poem that reads like stream-of-consciousness and is in big, italic lettering. This poem seems to be a reflection of what I read about Hali/Rose in her bio; this person also loves animals and reading. The poem, which the author refers to as “Leave Her Wild,” tells the story of a woman from a lover’s point of view, but it seems like Hali/Rose is writing about herself because of how the description of the girl in the poem mirrors the information in the author’s bio. The poem states, “She is for all people and thinks that women should be treated with the same respect as what a man gets.” The poem goes on to say, “She’s the kind of girl you wouldn’t want. Not because she’s ugly because my god she is beautiful. And not just her physical appearance but her soul. It’s the purest and most raw and magical thing you’ll ever see. She’s the kind of girl you don’t want to touch in a physical way or emotional way. Not because she can’t handle it, because she can.”
This
poem is an interesting combination of statements that work toward conveying a
feminist message. The author points out that the woman she is describing
believes in equality for both sexes, and then follows up with the statement,
“She’s the kind of girl you wouldn’t want.” This is jarring at first and seems
to contradict the previous statement until the reader continues and sees that
her beauty, both inward and outward, makes her undesirable, as if she is a
wild, untamed thing. This goes against the expectation that women will be quiet
and passive and establishes this woman as representing her gender in a
non-traditional way. The author warns us that
she can’t be touched, but this seems to be a result of her strength. This woman
is strong and not to be doubted. The prose-poem wraps up by stating, “My
point is she’s herself and in this lifetime? That is something extraordinary
and something that extraordinary deserves to be left wild.” This woman has
defied the traditional expectations placed on her sex; she’s raw, magical, and
extraordinary. However, the title of the poem, “Leave Her Wild,” and the final
line of the poem, “deserves to be left wild,” implies that she can be tamed by
a romantic partner, but that she deserves to remain in her untamed state. This
seems to counter the overwhelming feminist message of the poem, but is largely
overshadowed by the woman’s characteristics that defy gender expectations.
Tumblr
is known for allowing people to write freely and anonymously, and this author’s
poem expresses womanhood outside of the constraints of patriarchal ideology.
The author only identifies herself as Hali/Rose, a young woman who is writing
about an ideal woman in a misogynistic world; perhaps in not identifying
herself fully, she is more free to write about feminism and women liberated
from misogyny. The author’s Tumblr name, which is promisesofamazing, even seems
to guarantee something different and wonderful. While the author claims to be
“a lot lost” in her bio, she does seem to understand women’s abilities to
escape the confines of gender inequality. This post has been shared and
reposted multiple times by other Tumblr users.
I find a poem from a woman named Emm who
shares her Instagram posts to her Twitter feed (which gives her poetry an even
broader audience). When I find Emm’s Twitter page, I read her bio, which says
she’ll “gladly turn your stereotype on its head.
Muslim. Feminist. Palestinian. Immigrant. Canadian.” This statement is followed
by the hashtags #interfaith, #equality, #justice, #poverty, and #refugees. Before I even read Emm’s poetry, I know that she
is a self-proclaimed feminist and that she resists stereotypes associated with
her gender and religion. She is using Instagram (and Twitter) as a forum to
spread her agenda for social justice and gender equality, and her poetry echoes
this. Through social media, she is able to have her poetry read by a broad
audience, spreading an important message. Further, Emm is writing from the
position of a marginalized person (a woman, an immigrant, a Muslim) and
represents a demographic that has been traditionally denied a voice. Instagram gives
Emm a voice and an outlet for her poetry.
The
poem I am drawn to was posted to Emm’s Twitter feed (her Twitter handle is
@emmofc) from her Instagram account on December 19, 2016. She titled it
“complicated” (with a lowercase “c”) and the first stanza says, “because it is
used as a dirty word / when the alternative is to be called easy. simple. /
expecting instead sugar. spice. everything nice.” She follows up with, “because
it strips us of our right to be challenging. explosive. difficult. / worse. it
denies / Women / their complexity and mystery. / experiences of lives so
vividly lived.” This poem represents everything women have been discouraged
from being; the type of woman described in this poem is not “nice” and has the
right to be challenging, explosive, and difficult. She is complex and
mysterious with an identity all her own. The final stanza of the poem says,
“this word / is a direct challenge / requiring work and effort / worn a badge
of honour / by only Women / worth its magnitude.” “Women” is consistently
capitalized throughout the poem, which only further emphasizes the feminist
message of the poem and, while “the word” isn’t actually revealed in the poem,
it is one that is used to make women feel bad for a life “so vividly lived” and
the author calls attention to this as a travesty. Emm received two “likes” and
one re-tweet on her post and she has 1,678 followers and follows 931 users.
The
hashtags associated with this post are #poetry, #women, #womyn, #feminist,
#feminism, #poem, #writersofinstagram, and #writers. Emm identifies as a writer
and a feminist thinker, and she uses her writing to talk about controversial
issues in our contemporary society. I think it’s worth noting, as well, that
the background photo on her Twitter page is a quote from Malcom X: “I’m for
justice, no matter who it’s for or against.”
Barbara, whose handle is @januarydearest,
writes the following in her Twitter bio: “#poet / dealing with Latina hair in
Texas weather / these words are resistance / language as sanctuary.” I
appreciate how, before I even read the poems in her feed, Barbara establishes
herself as someone who uses words as weapons, and the first poem I come to on
her feed suggests that one of the causes she is fighting for is feminism. I
also notice that she has a Wordpress account linked to her Twitter page, which
is titled “hungrygirlpoetry.” It seems like Barbara writes often and makes her
poetry available to a wide audience via social media. Like Emm, Barbara
identifies as a woman of color, representing another marginalized people group.
Poetry seems to give her a voice, and social media outlets like Twitter and
Wordpress seem to give her an audience to convey a feminist message.
The poem I will discuss here appears as an
image on Barbara’s Twitter feed in black typewriter font and was posted on
November 15, 2016. The poem, which is short, says, “How do I exist, as a woman?
/ In Language so hostile, / The omen of jagged teeth and / war raged on our
bodies? / What will this do to our daughters?” The poem is accompanied by the
caption “thoughts for women” and the hashtags #feminism, #intersectionality,
#poem, #words, #feminist, #poetry, #quote, #tuesdaymotivation, and #typewriter.
Barbara questions how she can exist in the world as a woman, seemingly because
society is dominated by a patriarchal ideology that still attempts to control
women and put them into prescribed roles. She draws attention to the ways women
are objectified through the line “war raged on our bodies” and questions what
society’s view of women will do to future generations of young girls. “Jagged
teeth” is a wonderful metaphor to describe the oppression facing women and only
further emphasizes the need for true equality for women. Barbara claims that “words
are resistance” in her bio, and she capitalizes “Language” in her poem,
emphasizing that words have the power to enact change.
Barbara’s poem has 2 “likes” and hasn’t
been re-tweeted by other Twitter users. Barbara is following 212 other users
and has 44 users following her feed.
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