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For the Girls, a poem

girlThey 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 the angry storm, they drown me.
Like the desert sands, they suffocate me.
They see me, a little person
of little consequence …
a girl
Just a trinket, a toy, a receptacle,
something to sell, buy, trade or
marry-off prematurely,
without my say.
But hear me, I am the answer.
I am the calm after the storm.
I am the antidote to
stone hearts and desiccated souls.
I am the future and the past.
I am the hope, the dream, the reality.
I am real.
I am human.
I am the answer.

“Women are half the society. You cannot have a revolution without women. You cannot have democracy without women. You cannot have equality without women. You can’t have anything without women” Nawal El Saadawi (b. 1931), Egyption feminist writer and physician

RESOURCES:

Girls Not Brides

Lifting the Veil: Artists in Support of the Tahirih Justice Center:

The Tahirih Justice Center stands alone as the only national, multi-city organization providing a broad range of direct legal services, policy advocacy, and training and education to protect immigrant women and girls fleeing violence. Come out and support some of New York’s most powerful artists as they perform to raise money for a worth cause. $10 suggested donation all going to the center. Thanks to Terri Muuss for sharing this with us. Lifting the Veil Facebook Page is HERE.

August 7 at 5 p.m. – 8 p.m. EDT at BrickHouse Bewery & Restaurant 67 W. Main Street, Patchogue, New York 11772.

CnHzMjGWIAAyBDC.jpg-large

There is no place for child marriage in a world where empowered girls lead the way into a better future for everyone everywhere!

©2010,poem and photograph, Jamie Dedes, All rights reserved

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SAVE THE DATE: 100,000 Poets for Change act in global solidarity on September 24, 2016

100TPC2014Logo

100TAC100TMC

AN ANNOUNCEMENT FROM 100TPC COFOUNDER, MICHAEL ROTHENBERG: “On September 24, 2016 poets, musicians and artists around the world will be organizing poetry readings, parades, gallery exhibitions, music and dance performances focused on issues of peace, justice, and sustainability. This important annual global act of solidarity is the core activity of 100 Thousand Poets for Change, a non-profit organization.

100 Thousand Poets for Change offers an opportunity for a peaceful global discussion of issues such as war, global warming, poverty, racism, gender inequality, homelessness, gun violence, police brutality, lack of affordable medical care, censorship, and animal cruelty. Individual organizers are free to choose the specific topic and focus of their local event. If you are interested in participating in this global action please post sign up HERE.”

*****

100TCP - 2016

THE BARDO GROUP BEGUINES will host a virtual 100TPC event on September 24 with American-Israeli poet, Michael Dickel (Fragments of Michael Dickel) as Master of Ceremonies. Between Michael and me the event will run from morning in Israel to midnight in California.  You can share your work through Mr. Linky (instruction will be provided) or in the comments section of the blog post that day at The BeZine where you can also enjoy the work of other artist activists.

Work may include anything on topic: poetry, essay, short fiction, video (music, mime, dance, dramatic monolgue), art and photography and so forth.  The topic we’ve chosen this year – selected by Rev. Terri Stewart (Beguine Again founder) – and supported by our core team of poets, writers, story-tellers, artists and photographers, musicians and clerics is ENVIRONMENT and ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE.

This event is open to everyone wherever you are in the world and makes possible participation even if there is no street event happening in your area or if you are homebound. We hope you’ll join us.  Soon after the event, we’ll collect everything into one commemorative page. This is tradition. Commenorative pages from prior years can be accessed at The BeZine through its blog roll. All work will be also be archived at Stanford University, Stanford, CA.

Please feel free to share this post widely. Thank you! 

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BROWN EYES . . . poems in memory of my father

hikmet

Hello, Nazim … Hello!

After Nazim Hikmet

What happiness that today
I can be “open and confident”
Though normally I would hide
in the safety of feigned ignorance,
feign joy, pretend
that I can see my clear sky
in spite of his clouds

Respectfully, I provide the detail requested …

The year is 2016
The month, January
This the first Wednesday
The hour is 6 a.m.

now that i am getting to know you,
now that i am chest-high in your poesy
it’s your time that interests me
……….1902 ~

You were birthday twins, Nazim
You and my mysterious father,
born the same year, into the same culture,
spent your youth in that turmoil

If I study you, Nazim, will I find him, my diffident father,
in the dissident roots of your Turkish sensibility ~
they said he left with a price on his head
only to be caught, chained, imprisoned
in America, between a lover and a wife,
……….strong women . . .
………………..well, at least stronger than he

Hello Nazim!
I say “Hello!” gleefully
……….without a wink
I think we could have been perfect friends
that we might have understood each other
……….Hello! to you and your poetry
……………….Hello Nazim, Hello!

51TpdCJHSxL._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_Note: My father and Nazim Hikmet would have come of age just as WW I (1914-1918) was ending and the Turkish War of Independence (1919-1923) was beginning. Hikmet (1902-1963) was a renown poet, playwright and novelist, a communist and a revolutionary who spent his life in and out of jail. He won the International Peace Prize in 1950. My father (1902-1977) was a furrier. I didn’t know him well and saw him only two or three times a year, always at his office. This poem is after Hikmet’s Hello Everybody from Things I Didn’t Know I Loved.

brown eyes

we took the subway to meet you,
the train screeching like a warning omen,
rocketing me heart-first into destiny;
mom wore her best mended gloves,
had me in my sunday dress, hem let-down,
you came in a cashmere coat, a felt
stingy-brimmed fedora, leather gloves

there was some to-do over coffee or tea,
hot chocolate for me and a red balloon;
you examined my face, shook your head,
your brown eyes looked into mine, No!
you said, beautiful child, not mine

you turned away then, a chimera
floating down a city street …
now and again over time
you looked back; but your denial drew
life from mom, stole my red balloon,
tossed it up in your wake; i watched, daddy,
watched you with your warm cashmere coat,
your wife, two sons and those brown eyes,
they stare back at me from my mirror,
No! they say, but you were never quite sure

your mother

a tattered memoir in sepia tones
hanging on the wall of your office
a tiny plump sparrow of a woman
by a lone stone cottage
toothless, poor old thing
a warm shawl pulled to cover her head
an apron, worn shoes
from a time long past
from another world
my Turkish grandmother
what was her name?
you never said
i never asked

MAY ALL FATHERS BE PRESENT.

MAY ALL FATHERS BE LOVED.

MAY ALL FATHERS BE BLESSED.

MAY ALL FATHERS FIND PEACE.

© 2016, poems and illustration, Jamie Dedes, All rights reserved.

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the seeds of awakening, a poem

rebbleoh! simple the beginnings,
the apple of amazement,
the core of an idea, and
out slips the memories,
the injustices on which
the child-mind puzzled,
processing in adolescence,
then big girl, grown woman,
chasten the world, plant
the seeds of awakening

courage in slender frame, high
thoughts in rounded forehead,
the long expressive hands,
the sweeping circumstances,
Africa, Arabia, Europe, U.S.,
first the suffering and tears,
then the work, work, work ~
courage in the face of tyranny,
voices of the voiceless: the Justias!
the Prudentias! of our modern day

© 2016, poem and illustration, Jamie Dedes, All rights reserved