Sunday, January 16, 2022

Journey of Old Journals- 1981?


This journal was an assignment for a "women in literature" class; the professor directed us to read and respond to the text we were reading at the time. 


In hindsight,  I can see my beginning as a feminist and as an advocate for peace. I remembered a detail–  I’d put effort into setting up Draft Counseling Center on campus, resurrected when the registration requirement resumed in 1980. 


I wondered if children could write poetry on an LCD screen.


I wrote about my mother, who worked so hard in her first term at Community College.  She received a D+ on her first term paper. Mom did her homework at the kitchen table. The phone rang, the dog scratched to go out, J asks where his jeans are and B returns from a liaison with her boyfriend.  The phone rings again, and dad asks a monetary question.  Mom thinks about what to have for dinner, about tomorrow's errands, the dog's vet appointment, and her mind drifts back to the empty page. Her letters are rushed, I observed and thought to myself that she deserved a desk and a room of her own. 


During a discussion of the Sapphic meter, my Latin teacher asked the class what female poets were called. “They are poets,'' I replied and elaborated that it was there was no use in using a diminutive term for those of the female gender. My classmates thought I was radical. 


typewritten poem



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