STAND, GENTLEMEN, IN FRONT OF A WOMAN

Made not to suffer, but to shine with their uniqueness

Feminine poetry is a hymn to the beauty, resilience and power of women. Here are some short poems that celebrate the femininity and strength of women, starting from one by William Shakespeare, STANDING, GENTLEMEN, BEFORE A WOMAN:

For all the violence committed on her, for all the humiliations she has suffered, for her body that you exploited, for the intelligence that you trampled on, for the ignorance in which you left her, for the freedom that you denied her, for the mouth that you stopped, for the wings that you cut off. .. standing, Gentlemen, in front of a Woman. And if this isn’t enough, bow every time she looks at her soul, because she knows how to see it, because she knows how to make it sing. Standing, Gentlemen, every time she caresses your hand, every time she dries your tears as if you were her children, and when she waits for you even if you would like to run. Standing, always standing, my Lords, when she enters the room and plays love, and when she hides from you the pain and the loneliness and the terrible need to be loved. Don’t try to reach out to help her when she collapses under the weight of the world. She doesn’t need your compassion. She needs you to sit on the ground next to Her and wait for your heart to calm down, for fear to disappear, for the whole world to start turning peacefully again, and she will always be the one to get up first and give you her hand to cheer you up.

She has spent much of her life searching for what was lost, as well as the causes of loss and finding. Her poetry is not about missing objects, but about the lives of people who chase the ephemeral communications of modern life. Ofelia Alcantara Dimalanta https://www.facebook.com/opheliaalcantaradimalanta/ holds a bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate in philosophy from the University of Santo Tomas. Her poetics invites us to look at ourselves again, but with humor, with lightness, as if we were birds. With her verses she wanted to talk to us about the horror of moral and spiritual infirmities that camouflaged themselves among celebrations and official speeches. We offer you a short poem by her, POETIC HUMAN OPERATION: I write to you, you read me, in the most distant strangeness, under the skin and inside it, blind lovers clinging to the signs. More felt and finger-shaped than seen, like us invisibly. Connection, collision and collusion, transfer and transportation, clarity, dream, drift and dance. Our mutual paths, strangers, taken by the swoon of singing.

She has published books on cultural theory, ancient thought, and mythology. Chimako Tada https://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2011/01/16/books/book-reviews/mirrors-are-nothing-but-eyes/, who became a member of a magazine formed by Japanese writers at avant-garde, after getting married she moved to a quiet Japanese town at the foot of Mount Rokko. Her first book of poems, Hanabi, was born there. This poet has received numerous awards, including the Modern Poetry Women’s Prize for her book Hasu Kuibito. We suggest you read this poem by her, MIRRORS: The mirror is always slightly taller than me. He laughs a moment after I laugh. Turning red like a boiled crab, I cut myself from the mirror with shears. When my lips come closer, the mirror clouds and I fade behind my own sighs, like an aristocrat hiding behind her coat of arms, or a gangster behind her tattoos. Oh traveller, go to Sparta and tell him that in the mirror, courtyard longing for smiles, there is a single tombstone painted white, thick with makeup, where the wind blows alone.

She loved acting with a friend in a quiet bush around Sydney. She never married, although her diaries contain love stories, perhaps due to never having found a special person. This third generation Australian, she was born in 1885 in Dunara, Point Piper, Sydney. Always unusual, Dorothea Mackellar https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3606198-the-poems-of-dorothea-mackellar was in the contrast between the vigor of her youth and the atrophy of her talent. She died in Paddington from the consequences of a bad fall. She is now buried overlooking the open ocean, in Waverley Cemetery; go, she would be happy if you reread this poem of hers, FIRE: This life we call ours is neither strong nor free. Flame in the wind of death, trembles incessantly. And all we can do to use our little light before, in the piercing wind, it flickers in the night: to yield the heat of the flame, not to envy, but to give all we have of strength, that another flame may live.

Disobedient and unable to concentrate, Anne Sexton displayed a strong dislike of school; in fact, after enrolling in a professional school, she ran away after only one year of attendance. After the birth of her daughter, she enrolled in a poetry workshop for adults. By writing about abortion, masturbation and adultery, she helped open the door to women’s rights. Starting in 1957 https://www.fembio.org/english/biography.php/woman/biography/anne-sexton/, after having consulted numerous writers, her poetry became a central part of her life. Her reputation peaked with the publication of Love Poems, where her style became less confessional and more socially conscious. Alcoholism and depression accompanied her long solitude, until one day in October she let herself die by inhaling carbon monoxide. As you read this poem of hers, we are sure that you will feel her close to you. MORE THAN ME: Not that it was beautiful, but that in the end there was a certain sense of order; something worth learning in that narrow diary of my mind, in the clichés of the mental hospital where the broken mirror or my selfish death overtook me. I touched my head; it was glass, an overturned bowl. It’s a small thing to rage in your own bowl. At first it was private. Then it was more than myself.

Whether you are an art enthusiast, a traveler or just a curious person, we invite you to explore the compositional balance of other writers, https://meetingbenches.com/category/writers/ or poets https://meetingbenches.com/category/poetry/. The ownership of the images that appear in this blog corresponds to their authors.