I had a great time at No Limits in Kearney yesterday, reading from my dissertation on Matilda Fletcher and Ghost Girl, hearing some smart feminist scholarship and creative writing, attending an inspiring poetry workshop with Lenelle Moise, and of course, seeing all the birds. Really is was stunning – the hundreds of sandhill cranes singing their eerie song in the air and in fields, the thousands of geese swarming the sky, and even the occasional normal birds like Canadian geese, robins, finches, an eagle, and a kestrel. I did drive over to see the cranes near Grand Island two years ago, but I literally saw thousands more this year, especially the glittery movement of the geese against the blue horizon. Wow.
Category Archives: feminism
Matilda in South Dakota
I’ve just returned from Spearfish, South Dakota where I presented in the 2009 Western Literature Association Conference, “Lecturers, Matriarchs, Writers, Outdoorswomen: Voices from the Placeless Women of the West.” Joining me in the panel were two great writers, a poet scholar on “The Yellow Wallpaper” and a prose writer on gender. I read poems on Matilda Fletcher, the 19th century lecturer and suffragist from Iowa. She too spoke in South Dakota, over a hundred years ago. It was a fantastic panel. Thank you all who attended and who stopped by to say hello after the talk!
Because the conference was in the beautiful Black Hills, I did spend some time site-seeing. I made it over to Devil’s Tower, to Mount Rushmore, to the Bad Lands, and a few other spots, here and there. Even driving through South Dakota I couldn’t help but to think, what an amazing country.
students
With the first week of classes done I want to thank all my new women’s poetry students and intro to lit students for starting off the semester wonderfully!
And while I’m at it, I want to thank my fantastic students in my women and poetry class I had last spring and my amazing students I had this summer in women and popular culture. Each day the latter group arrived ready to discuss and contribute insightful comments. My favorite day was an activity in which I asked them to work in groups to design the cover of a girl’s or women’s magazine that some how interrupted and challenged the majority of magazines aimed at those gendered female. Here’s a picture of their work on the whiteboard:
You can zoom in here. Some of my favorite features of their ‘zines included, “How to Dress Your Body,” “Girls Night In,” “Guide to Healthy Living: How to Love Your Body,” and “Sexuality Vs. Sexualization.” It’s classroom moments like these that remind me why I love teaching.
ads
Over the last two days in class, we’ve talked about ads, those that are positive, those that are negative, and those that are both toward women. Though I’d seen the evolution dove ad:
I had not seen the onslaught dove ad:
Striking, no? My seatmate leaned over after the ad and said “It’s still an advertisement for Dove.” Which is true. Still though. It does make one stop and think.
my little red book on rachael ray
This is a bit late to post, but the editor of my little red book was interviewed on Rachael Ray Show.Wow. New York Times Best Seller’s list the first week it arrived, now Rachael Ray. There’s also an interview with the editor in The New Yorker and a discussion on feministing. Clearly, a lot of women have something to say about periods. You can submit your period story to my little red book’s online anthology.
my little red book – new york times best sellers list
enuf said. read more here. but if need another reason to buy the book, watch the period dance.
Or see the best vagina related media ever: the film Teeth. Here’s the teeth trailer.
my little red book – more
Here’s a few more reviews on my little red book, the anthology of first period stories. Here’s one from a male reader:
The engaging and humorous anecdotes effortlessly connect reader and author on a very personal level; more importantly, the theme of the book creates a strong message that transcends age, culture, ethnicity, religion, or any background. While the stories will inevitably more powerful for women, I would highly recommend it to men who have an open-mind in learning about “the other half of the world.”
And another:
Fourth, the advance and all proceeds of this book are being donated, by the author, to women’s health charities. Which are involved in causes such as providing sanitary supplies to those unable to afford them in places such as Africa, so the girls do not have to miss school during their period.
Indeed, I received a letter from Planned Parenthood yesterday which informed me of the donated money they received for this very cause.
Today my students discussed a scene in Tayari Jones‘ Leaving Atlanta where a character gets her first period and her mother takes her out to dinner. The students talked about the scene and their own experiences with their bodies when getting their first period. A young male student wanted to know if girls talked about this sort of thing because the discussion seemed so normalized in the text. I kept thinking, well some do, some don’t, but maybe more would. I think having a book like our bodies, ourselves or my little red book or any text which helps to demystify the female body is so necessary. It is only because such events like menstraution are cloaked in secrecy that they seem shameful.