Poetry (here I hear myself loudest)
is the human voice,
and are we not of interest to each other?
Elizabeth Alexander
What She Said, June 28: Elizabeth Alexander
What She Said, June 27: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Some people ask: “Why the word feminist? Why not just say you are a believer in human rights, or something like that?” Because that would be dishonest…It would be a way of pretending that it was not women who have, for centuries, been excluded.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
What She Said, June 26: Patricia Smith
I suggest that the poets don’t hide. That they scream. That they confront. That they bellow and resist.
–Patricia Smith
What She Said, June 25: Ntozake Shange
Where there is a woman there is magic.
–Ntozake Shange
What She Said, June 24: June Jordan
To begin is no more agony than opening your hand.
–June Jordan
What She Said, June 23: Camille Dungy
A person who isn’t reminded several times a day about the implications of the color of her skin has time to consider the implications of other things.
–Camille Dungy
What She Said, June 22: Sandra Cisneros
We’re going to right the world and live.
–Sandra Cisneros
What She Said, June 14: Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche
I think the history of western feminism is fraught with racism, and I think it’s important to acknowledge that and, at the same time, to say that feminism is not a western invention, that my great-grandmother in what is now south-western Nigeria is feminist.
–Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche
What She Said, June 13: Roxane Gay
To have privilege in one or more areas does not mean you are wholly privileged. Surrendering to the acceptance of privilege is difficult, but it is really all that is expected . . . the acknowledgement of my privilege is not a denial of ways I have been and am marginalized, the ways I have suffered.
–Roxane Gay
What She Said, June 12: Jesmyn Ward
Protests and looting naturally capture attention. But the real rage smolders in meetings . . .
white rage doesn’t have to take to the streets and face rubber bullets to be heard. Instead, white rage has access to the courts, police, legislatures, and governors, who cast its efforts as noble . . .
–Jesmyn Ward
