by 
“Girls are one of the most powerful forces for change in the world: When their rights are recognized, their needs are met, and their voices are heard, they drive positive change in their families, their communities, and the world.” Kathy Calvin, United Nations Foundation President & CEO
They come like thistle and thorn,
and write their rage upon my body.
They come like locusts and
feed on the fields of my soul.
Like an angry storm, they drown me.
Like the desert sands, they sufficate me.
They see me, a little person of
little consequence …
a girl.
Just a trinket, a toy, a receptical.
Something to sell, buy, and trade …
a workhorse.
– But hear me –
I am the answer.
I am the calm after the storm.
I am the antidote to your stone heart
and desiccated soul.
I am the future, the present, the past.
I am the hope, the dream, the reality.
I am authentic.
I am human.
I am the answer.
~ As the women go, so goes the world ~
© 2010, Jamie Dedes; illustration courtesy of Mohamed Mohamed Mahmoud Hassan, Public Domain Pictures.net
WEDNESDAY WRITING PROMPT
“There are more than 500 million adolescent girls living in the developing world today. Every one of them can potentially help break the cycle of intergenerational poverty, with ripple effects multiplying across her society.” Anthony Lake, Executive Director of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)
In November 2010, I wrote I Am the Answer for a Universal Children’s Day event sponsored by UNICEF. It’s not that men don’t make constructive contributions. It’s not that boys and men don’t suffer. It’s just that we’ve seen what a difference it makes in the lives of all children and the grown-ups they become – no matter the gender – when women are respected, educated, and not forced into marriage. What difference would it make if women and girls were not looked down upon within their cultures, religions, the workplace, and government? What difference would it make in the world if girls were always and everywhere seen as fully human. Tell us in your poem/s.
Share your poem/s on theme in the comments section below or leave a link to it/them. All poems on theme are published on the first Tuesday following the current Wednesday Writing Prompt. (Please no oddly laid-out poems.)
No poems submitted through email or Facebook will be published.
IF this is your first time joining us for The Poet by Day, Wednesday Writing Prompt, please send a brief bio and photo to me at thepoetbyday@gmail.com to introduce yourself to the community … and to me :-). These are partnered with your poem/s on first publication.
PLEASE send the bio ONLY if you are with us on this for the first time AND only if you have posted a poem (or a link to one of yours) on theme in the comments section below.
Deadline: Monday, May 20 by 8 pm Pacific Standard Time.
Anyone may take part Wednesday Writing Prompt, no matter the status of your career: novice, emerging or pro. It’s about exercising the poetic muscle, showcasing your work, and getting to know other poets who might be new to you. This is a discerning non-judgemental place to connect.
You are welcome – encouraged – to share your poems in a language other than English but please accompany it with a translation into English.
ABOUT
Poet and writer, I am a former columnist and associate editor of a regional employment publication. Currently, I run this site, The Poet by Day, an information hub for poets and writers. I am the managing editor of The BeZine published by The Bardo Group Beguines (originally The Bardo Group), a virtual arts collective I founded. I am a weekly contributor to Beguine Again, a site showcasing spiritual writers. My work is featured in a variety of publications and on sites, including: Levure littéraure, Ramingo’s Porch, Vita Brevis Literature,Compass Rose, Connotation Press, The Bar None Group, Salamander Cove, Second Light, I Am Not a Silent Poet, Meta / Phor(e) /Play, and California Woman. My poetry was recently read by Northern California actor Richard Lingua for Poetry Woodshed, Belfast Community Radio. I was featured in a lengthy interview on the Creative Nexus Radio Show where I was dubbed “Poetry Champion.”
The BeZine: Waging the Peace, An Interfaith Exploration featuring Fr. Daniel Sormani, Rev. Benjamin Meyers, and the Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi among others
“What if our religion was each other. If our practice was our life. If prayer, our words. What if the temple was the Earth. If forests were our church. If holy water–the rivers, lakes, and ocean. What if meditation was our relationships. If the teacher was life. If wisdom was self-knowledge. If love was the center of our being.” Ganga White, teacher and exponent of Yoga and founder of White Lotus, a Yoga center and retreat house in Santa Barbara, CA
“Every pair of eyes facing you has probably experienced something you could not endure.” Lucille Clifton
Jamie Dedes' THE POET BY DAY Webzine 
https://poeticoceans.wordpress.com/2019/05/21/for-g-jamie-dedes-the-poet-by-day-wednesday-writing-prompt-fearful-famished-femininity-%D8%B9%D9%82%DB%8C%D8%AF%D8%AA-%DB%81%DB%8C-%D9%86%DB%81-%D8%B1%DB%81%DB%8C-%D8%A8%D8%A7%D9%82%DB%8C/
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Hi Jamie,
Here’s my fourth response:
She Hurt
cradled in their arms her pain
gets up and swims around the room.
It swims from her head, beneath her skin,
Her skin is the yellow ocean that bleeds.
Fish rises in the sky a summer
Fish dives under the earth a winter
Her mother drips breastmilk into a cup
to feed her hurt baby.
Many hands wish to hold the pain,
Lift up the wounded body.
Wishes are wrapped in colour.
Yellow ghosts look on beside
plants ready to flower.
From my forthcoming collection “Fish Strawberries”
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Jamie, here’s my submission, entitled
“Had You Been A Boy” I’m not sure it’s
Exactly what you wanted.
Had you been boy we’d have called
you Jeff. I was sorry for the theft
that resulted in a nest, while her past
desires, the freedom, the joy, the
dancing, all arrested by not so gentle
a man’s theft, and repeatedly attested
to, while unpaid, unearned damages left,
a girl’s desire not to conspire to the same
mistakes, yet though a mark was left.
I am Woman, I am Strong, my mind
and body my own, lessons learned
from the nest. I harken, to my own drum,
unlike others like our mother’s, that we
will never forget, and that singularly
innocent, yet flippant remark,
“Had you been a boy.”
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Hi Jamie,
Here’s my third response:
Liberty
is a woman holding up a torch
in a harbour whilst she is not free
in certain states to have control
over her own body.
Justice
is a woman who holds the scales
blindfolded and dumb.
I am not a statues so carry the torch with my words
and clearly see my future
decided by me.
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xo
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Good morning, Jamie!! Here is mine for this week – I hope it fits the theme.
https://iidorun.wordpress.com/2019/05/20/this-female-body-a-trijan-refrain-poem/
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Dear Respected Jamie Ji
First Response
It’s a girl,
O’hurry put her beneath the sand
Oh, no one can stand or understand
this creature, soft and tender
I wonder why ?
when life is so grand.
Girls ,mothers daughters
sisters and wives,
Can life move on without these five?
The land of Faith The land of oil
Did they really bury their daughters
alive?
Girls are the lively spirits
of a home or castles at heights
girls are Goldilocks Cinderellas
and Snow Whites
They are Queens Ranis and First ladies
blacks or whites-
When girls are born moods are forlorn
bringing up a burden in a teacup , a storm,
Then sold tortured and finally given away
Where is a girl’s real home, to stay?
Born buried and barred,
are they really so bad
and scarred?
Girls are sweet loving and kind
I wish we would be soft tender
and caring for them in
our hearts and mind.
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Hello Jamie, Hope you are well. I like this prompt and have entered my response here. I had some art I created with computer technology but could not get it to appear here. Hope you are well.
The Truth of Hindsight
Hindsight is always better it is said
always invoking in me the transgressions
in my past of the egregious kind
conceived into an ethnically diverse family
curious of the differences, yet both drawn
and repelled like a moth to a flame
one of only a handful of such families
in an all-white neighborhood
though I did not distinguish it
then
my reddish skinned father and white mother
craving more but for unspoken reasons
spoken in private understanding
she from impoverished beginnings
he in accepting only European roots
agreeing upon only one thing in union
the dictates of societal norms for me
a child of the female persuasion
that marriage is best accepted sooner
than later & children are part of the
sanctioned outcome
but mind you if such an arrangement
is not a path upon which you wish to tread
then only professions of nursing
and teaching will suffice
for creativity in writing or artistic endeavor
will never sustain you in living
and you would know this
in hindsight
now in hindsight I only understand that
not everything that comes before
is better than that which
comes later
in hindsight I wish I had known that
choosing the passion of your heart
over being accepted
is what my path
Should
Have
Been
© Renee Espriu May 2019
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peace blessings and gratitude from LA ❤
https://wordslessspoken781842219.blog/2019/05/16/solo-ella/
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Hi Jamie,
This is closer to what you are after:
In Charge of Her Own
body.
Her womb no longer
the property of the law.
No longer cut
and shaped by knives.
between her legs
Her voice not silenced.
Her opinions not downplayed
as over emotional, unreasonable.
Sometimes she does not feel
in charge of her own body
as it changes, but reminds herself
she knows how to find the answer
to the questions her body asks.
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Thank you! On target.
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Hi Jamie,
Hope this is close to what you require:
To And Fro
the iron
over bedsheets, his shirts,
as she stands three hours
hot poker of pain
in the small of her back,
lists what else to do,
take down window nets,
wash and iron,
vax front room,
lug it upstairs for bedroom,
carpets,
hoover front room,
lug it upstairs for bedroom
carpets,
clean windows inside
to and fro,
to and fro
polish beneath knick knacks
bought on holiday,
to and fro
strip and remake beds,
make his tea,
always meat and two veg
He arrives home and says,
“What have you ever done for me?”
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It’s fine, Paul. Thank you!
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Respected Jamie Ji,
striking and powerful prompt, it touches sharply like a serpent’s sting , cajoles calmly the poetic instincts, making one surrender to the soul and spirit saying, ‘I am the wanted and the unwanted’
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Thank you, Anjum Ji.
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