National Poetry Month 2020 Day 26: “Wonder Woman” & “Scared”

This poem was part of a collaboration with poet Jenna Robinson and the dancers of my MFA in Dance thesis performance, "The Shrew Unleashed," at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa. It was performed for public and school audiences in the spring of 2015. Robinson is an award-winning slam poet.

Wonder Woman

by Jenna Robinson

As a child I always looked up to Wonder Woman

An Amazon

Seven foot tall Greek warrior

A defender of fertility and innocence

Like Maori women

Who would follow men into battle

And come home to raise future chiefs

Like African slaves brought to American plantations

Who picked cotton all day

While carrying their babies on their backs

Like immigrants

Who cut off their native tongues

Hoping to give their children a taste of the American dream

I’ve always been self-conscious of this girth

But wonder woman allowed me to see size as strength

As a long lost descendent of the Amazonian race

We were made to fight leagues of men

But the same pens that wrote her into comics 

Wrote her out of film

After 6 superman and 8 batman movies

DC is finally making a superman AND batman film

And Wonder Woman is making a guest appearance

Like her presence was some long awaited gift

So us feminists could shut up already

When wonder woman finally made it to Hollywood

Male casting directors lightened her up and shrunk her down

Just visible enough to be in the background of the big screen

A token princess with a little tiara

A petite movie star whose strength is her beauty

Forget that 

Wonder Woman flew in an invisible plane

Used that costume to deceive men into believing that she was weak

She repurposed her shackles of oppression

Into bulletproof wrist-guards

And used that tiara as a boomerang

Because she is not a princess

She’s a queen

She didn’t have any of the powers or money of clark and bruce

I mean, yeah she’s a goddess

But aren’t we all?

Whether we fit societal definitions of beauty is irrelevant

See

For me

Wonder Woman

Looks like a breast cancer survivor

An Amazon

Who cut off her decaying breast

So she could aim her bow better

Warriors don’t give up in the middle of battle

Wonder Woman looks like my Grandma

Who turned 91 this year

A black woman from Louisiana

Who became Rosie the Riveter during the War

Transforming into Rosa Parks on bus lines

My grandma refused to sit down

Cuz she had to teach her children to stand up

My grandma had a golden lasso of truth

That looked a lot like a belt

To whip the truth out of her grand babies

My Wonder Woman

Could become whatever superhero her family needed

We are the products of Amazonian gladiators

Women who don’t walk around all day

In a superhero costume

But throw on their capes

In times of crisis

The silver screen tells us we are weak

Damsels in distress

Waiting for a prince to save us

I mean

Even when we have a strong female lead

We berate her

We honor Katniss

But get caught up in her love story

Instead of the fact that she is the face of a revolution

If you don’t love our strength

Why do you keep carving our image in marble?

Adorning monuments and capitals

We are the life of this nation

We must honor the legacy of our woman warrior heritage

Step off the pages and pick up the pens

When we write our history

We will no longer be invisible footnotes

Cameos or sidekicks

No matter your size

You are powerful

So claim your title as an Amazonian goddess

And demand to be seen

[See video of "Wonder Woman" in performance at UH here!]

On the topic of bravery and pluck, this is a work-in-progress originally from 2000:

I am a scared person

by Blythe Stephens

Thin-lipped.

I try to be happy, am happy, almost all of the time.

Then maybe they’ll like me.

Celebrate and hide my mis-fit nature.

Lost, yet pretending to enjoy the “journey.”

White-knuckled.

Where am I going?

God, please just don’t let me get cynical, 

one of my worst fears.

That and drowning.

So anxious to stay alive

To please

To make some sort of impact.

Shallow-breathed.

How can I find my self

My courage

My path

My voice?

Stomach-knotted.

Moving forward

Allowing experience to mature me

Developing my skills and responses

Gathering knowledge and resources

And then just being ok with being scared

Anyway

It’s only natural

Courageous.