wasp woman

i just spent a week in maryville missouri with a group of women poets that i admire and get together with every year. we first met seven years ago at the iowa writers workshop where we studied with jorie graham [graham's last workshop at u of i before moving to cambridge]. our interests are varied, our styles different, our ages range, but we like each other enough to continue to meet at various locations every year and work together. emmy [see her blog 'ysleta poeta'] is an inspiring poet, as are all the other women in this group. emmy urged me to start this blog, and after i picked the name 'solitary wasp', she found a postcard in a second-hand store in maryville with the wasp woman on it, bought it for me, and posted it here. it's not my usual style of poetry, but i'll use it to start some part of the dialog:


Too many too quiet too long. Shout!

Angry that nothing’s changed.
Shout! It hurts people, makes anger.

Then make songs of shout.

Don’t confuse this with the party song.

Older women shouted Vagina! until
Designer Vaginas. Look,
design your own vagina. It’s shouted
around Maryville in May. The shout
becomes a lesbian crack.



The loudest shout won the war.

Martin shouted quietly and was shot.

Quietude martyrs.
Martyrs die by serene definition.

Take back the shout.

Shout for the mummed

Shout about the valley of prisons,
where the quieted gulags roam.
Shout down the dams, the giant
flatulence of petroleum.

Outshout the bullies, the guns,
the usurpers of other shouts.

Outshout the shouters

who shout with green mouths
stained by the tall grass prairies.

--o.p.