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

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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.



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