each is beautiful
a woman’s life
makes it (that awareness)
through her touch
descendants
of strict age
set against vanity
not secure in loveliness
a girl is born
like a little bird opening its wing
she lifts her face
in a down of feathers
a rose,
opens its leaves
with such a natural care
that we give words for
petal deep
in the imagination
a word becomes
a bitter thing
or a word is
an imagination
tell our daughters they are
fragile as a bird
strong as the rose
deep as a word
and let them make
their own growing time
big with tenderness
From “Tell Our Daughters,’’ Magdalene Syndrome Gazette; 31 New American Poets; I Hear My Sisters Saying.
Scientists, motherhood, and other probings of the female body.
Cameron Shaw draws from examples in explaining her own connection to Lisa Pearson’s collection of work by female visual artists and writers.
Who gets written into history? Who is forgotten? What are the conditions under which eradication can occur?
Originally published in
Featuring interviews with Frances McDormand, A.M. Homes, Padgett Powell, Tina Girouard, William Pope. L, Butch Morris, Malcolm Morley, Jafar Panahi, and John Elderfield.
Work that is just about the technical or conceptual, personal or political, is fine; it meets the world with what’s in fashion. But there’s something else bordering on magic, that brings an artwork home, makes it land and resonate. You can’t really teach that so much as conjure it.
Kara Walker
