THEthe Poetry

Galaxies internal and distant in this week's installment from THEthe Poetry. 'Detention' by poet Sammy Greenspan.

More poems from

Sammy Greenspan
Rebecca Melnyk
Laura Cronk
Chloe Yelena Miller
Jeffrey Hecker
Gene Tanta
Dave Roskos 
Joe Weil
Leslie Anne Mcilroy
Sean Thomas Dougherty 

BEING A WOMAN IN THE 21st CENTURY

Being a Woman in the 21st Century has its charges. It depends on the decade and the day. We have the freedom women in the past never envisioned, or never achieved, but let’s put a positive spin on this. It is glorious, despite what drags us often down. We rise. The difference, now, is the verve with which we arm ourselves -- that is what makes the 21st Century Woman.

The following four poets were asked to let this theme infiltrate their poetry. Chloe Yelena Miller’s “Hunger,” focuses on food, smell and the past – a poem about the maternal and memory, but also a poem about the domestic. Laura Cronk, also writes about the domestic doings of a woman in the 21st century, “Up pen/Down pen/Up block/Down block/Up crust/Down crust.” Rebecca Melnyk’s “Space” shows what is in-between the imagined and the unimagined, the self and the not-self,and “that space between walking.” Sammy Greenspan writes about the psyche of being a woman, “What do you mean this is not a straight path /What do you mean you won’t specify preference-“ which reads as a mirror into insecurity, judgment and doubt. Together, these display a diverse notion of what it means to be a woman in the 21st century. Their poems read like snapshots of the daily.

Leah Umansky    
THEthe Poetry 

Watch this space for more new poems.