Final Blog Post : The Last Analysis

    Understanding women's literature is a lot like understanding the woman, herself. As we were shown in various texts we've read throughout the course, especially illustrated in works such as The Vagina Monologues, The Shawl, and Krik? Krak!, women fit no specific stereotype placed upon them. They are wild; they are tame, they are emotional; they are stoic, they are simple; they are mysteriously complex. I've drawn on my experiences growing up to a single mother and being raised in her hair salon to help me connect to each text; each different aspect embodied in femininity.  In some cases, the material was easily understood. The trials of women displayed in Ensler's "What I want my Words to do to You" and The Vagina Monologues, and in other cases, I couldn't have had a harder time connecting. The alienation and self-depersonalization in Push and Two or Three Things I Know For Sure. Here and now, at the end of the course, I find myself more enlightened, empathatic to, and sensitive towards femininity and womanhood, but really the same "boat" as before: "Woman" is just too general of a label to slap on any person of the gender. Under that title, they are fighters, mothers, lovers, lonely, bored, starving, outspoken, silenced, healing, broken, content, pissed off, sophisticated, raunchy, and everything in between. No two women, through life or our novels have proved to be the same.

    My favorite novel(s) were a tie between The Vagina Monologues and Krik? Krak! Eve Ensler quickly became a favorite author of mine, due to her raw,  "no-holds-barred" styling. She wound up and punched the reader in the face with everything she had to celebrate women with. This novel made me uncomfortable, sad, guilty, turned on, interested, repulsed, and other feelings I thought a book had no power in coercing me to feel. I learned the most through Ensler, as she exposed me to the mind of a lesbian's vagina, an "old" vagina, and a brand new vagina. All in all, she had me thinking as close as I ever could like a girl. Being a bit of a close-minded reader, dabbling only in old works written by dead men, this was a new alien territory that I actually found myself to like.

     Krik? Krak! was one of the standout novels that I thoroughly enjoyed for reasons I've yet to figure out.  I enjoyed the little, novella like stories that all seemed to tie together, yet contradict themselves at the same time, as that seemed to be foreshadowing or even allegorical of the course as a whole.

   The course seemed best wrapped up by our final piece analyzed, the documentary-esque film, "What I Want my Words To Do To You." As I wrote in our final in class assignment, the film takes women of different backgrounds with different stories, that can all stand alone as piece of educating material on feminism, and juxtaposes each together to present a bigger, picture of feminism : a plethora of cultures, ideologies, pasts, futures, and stories that all come together in a celebratory jubilation that even Ms. Ensler herself couldn't express in words.

Two or Three Things That Healed for Sure

Dorothy Allison writes the novel "Two or Three Things I Know For Sure" from an autobiographical standpoint, letting the readers into very intimate, personal hardships of her life. One of the last "two or three things" that Allison admits she knows, is she wrote the brutally honest truths out of love, but leaves a bit of ambiguity in the sense that she doesn't tell us who the love is directed at. 

I, personally, interpreted the love she speaks of, as love towards herself and especially to her family. The anecdotes are not only her stories, but are the stories of her family and Allison very bluntly airs out the family's dirty laundry. I think she ends with the loving "two or three thing" because she wants to reach out to the family she "put on the spot." Writing, to many people, is a therapeutic way to heal one's self and reach out and heal relationships with people. Allison has given we, the readers, the privilege of letting us in to her own personal life and the reconciliation she makes with herself and hopefully the family from her past, and gives us a great read and a great contribution to the feminist movement.

Two or Three Things I Know For Sure uses pictures, captions, and text just like Fun Home to portray the story of the author, Dorothy Allison's childhood and upbringing. Not unlike Fun Home, Two or Three Things ... is autobiographical, which made me want to explore the idea of why authors feel they want to include visual aspects in retelling the story of their lives, even if slightly fictionalized for entertainment value.

In class, my group was assigned the task to analyze a photo of and the story surrounding it of Allison as a child. It was humorous to read her own thoughts on her image as a child and helped build the story around it she was trying to portray. Around 1995, the earliest publication year of this novel, while entering the era of the computer, I believe Allison, just like Bechdel, took advantage of modern multimedia to help the reader grab a sense of "connectivity" to the author's story.

So, I decided to join in the fun. Above is a picture of me, that I love to make fun of, during freshman year of high school. And yes, that is all really my hair. Whether it be my patented feauxhawk or the "jewfro" I was sporting above, I've always been big into hair (no pun intended considering the jewfro). This was taken outside my best friends home just after our buddies and I had one of our "band practices" which consisted of a quarter of music and 3/4 of taking pictures of ourselves "playing" music.  We certainly fell victim to the glamour of the "high school kids in a band" myspace era and would do whatever it took to stop being the quiet nerdy kids in school and meet a girl or two. The jewfro didn't help this cause much.

"Are you listening, Magda?"

   In the second story portion of The Shawl, Rosa, we learn of Rosa's life after her survival of the horrors of the Holocaust. Besides her animalistic conditions of living, Rosa shows her trauma most notably through the letters she writes to her dead daughter, Magda, who was killed in the camps. Because of the letters, the disturbing question arises of if Rosa actually believes Magda could be alive, or understands her letters as a coping method. The follow issue inspired me to write a small, poetic-like piece regarding my belief on the question.

"Are You Listening, Magda?"

Are you listening Magda?
Can you hear me screaming out for you?
When they took you from me,
and you went shock bodied stiff,
I dare not say a word.
But I call for you now Magda,
each day and every night
in the dark corner of this room,
through scribbles and scratches.
The blonde of your curls is the brightest color I remember
when this Florida sky is so black,
So I'm calling for you Magda,
Can you hear me Magda,
Won't you call back?

Did they lose their divinity?

In the novel, "When The Emperor was Divine," there is little reference to the relevance of the title. As discussed in class and from prior knowledge of Japanese culture, the Japanese believe their Emperor's or leader's to actually be divine deities, in a metaphoric manner. I believe Otsuka uses the title to make reference to a period before the novel takes place, a time in which the Japanese people in America were still proud of their heritage. The boy has an episode in a California street where he claims to be a "chink" rather than a "jap" to avoid being mistreated due to his ethnicity. I believe this is one of Otsuka's references to a time before when the Japanese people (characterized by aforementioned Emperor) were "divine" or at least not considered lesser class citizens on their way to detainment camps. The loss of  "divinity" is personified by the father and especially his questionable confession at the end of the novel where he admits the wrongdoings he did because was indeed, Japanese.

The question soon arises of did the Japanese really lose their pride and can another group of people take someone's pride? Otsuka ends the novel in an ambiguous tone, perhaps leaving us to think about the answer. More than 50 years later, the Japanese have restored status and the detainment camps are (unfortunately) rarely mentioned, as if they were never thought less of. The roller-coaster like ride the Japanese took with their status has certainly strengthened as a people and should not be forgotten. I believe Otsuka wishes to tackle that issue with her novel and especially resonates in her title personifying the Japanese as a whole.

Cultural Tradition vs. Assimilation

In Otsuku's novel, "When The Emperor was Divine," there is an evident struggle of identity for the young boy character. Like his ancestors, he wishes to remain small framed so that he may jockey a horse someday. His peers advise him to "become a big American" however, because that would lead to "success." The boy from here on internalizes the issue of conflict between the cultures of his Japanese heritage and his new home.

 Otsuku helps to illuminate this as the boy dreams in the stable and dreams of riding a white horse. The color of the horse is especially significant, as one would unfortunately think of the white male as the typical and average American. The boy has mixed symbols of both worlds in his dream, further uncovering the extent to how indecisive the boy is.

Assimilation has been a hardship that has always walked hand-in-hand with immigration. I recall my great-grandfather, Damiano Anthony Fabrizi telling me of his travel to Ellis Island and the "new" name he was given when his ship landed, Anthony Damiano Fabrizi, because it was more American. Unlike the boy, my great grandfather had no struggle and accepted his new future, much as the peers of the boy do. For the boy however, he has the depth to put more thought into the battle and hopes for an outcome he can comfortably live with.

When The Emperor Was Divine

During the early 1940s, history's most gruesome acts against humanity were committed during the Holocaust as the Nazi's occupied western Europe. But right here in America, as we were fighting for the rights of humanity, we were condemning our own Japanese-American citizens.

Julie Otsuka's novel When The Emperor was Divine describes the journey one Japanese family undergoes as this very event occurs in Berkeley, California. Otsuka uses one of my favorite literary devices, borrowed from Existentialism, a stoic form of writing devoid of much emotion. This subtle tool is so essential to the core theme of the novel. As the Japanese were being dehumanized and their human rights and emotions were being stripped and ignored, Otsuka uses the stoic styling of writing to illuminate this thought. The same idea is employed in the nameless nature of the characters. Each member of the family is addressed by their role in the family : the boy, the girl, the father, etc.

As historical fiction does, Otsuka is creating her own scenario in an event that actually happened to enlighten readers more thoroughly of a crime against humanity that occurred and went mostly unnoticed.

"Preshuz -- Da Importints of Literasy"

Precious tells her story to the reader is a third person point of view, capturing her own thoughts in her own styling; an illiterate, sometimes incoherent manner.

It is clear Sapphire takes many different institutions of the United States head on, such as public education and health, the lack of community of modern day, and social workers, but through something as subtle as spelling mother as "muver," for example,  Sapphire also takes on the issue of illiteracy, especially in higher aged children and teens. The frustration felt by the reader as we try to piece together the phonetic scribbles that Precious must've felt as she wrote them, helps embody the frustration Sapphire believes we should feel for the issue, wholly.

Push is such a powerful, canonical, piece of literature because it not only finds its way into the reader's core emotions and psyche, but illuminates the problems of modern society and stimulates the desire for correction.

Am I Precious? An Ironic Name

The name Precious' mother gives her (as a middle name, her first name is Claireece) easily stirs up questions as the abuse from her mother occurs and grows more traumatic. Precious is subjected to physical and mental abuse, and eventually sexual abuse as not only her father impregnates her at age 12, but eventually is forced to orally please her own mother. Any one of these events is enough to give a child the impression there is something wrong with them and they are unloved, much as Precious feels. However, why was she named Precious then; a name given to beloved and desirable people or things. In fact, The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines precious as highly esteemed or cherished, which of course is the opposite of how she is treated at home and in her community. Precious is almost used in an oxymoronic manner, rather.

I feel this is one of the more subtle ways Precious is subject to cruelty and abuse and probably has a strong hand in her poor self-esteem. To know what precious means and believe she is anything but is a constant abuse from her parents, without them ever having to actively do a thing more to her. In the beginning of the novel, this is certainly true as she has a terrible perception of herself and belief of what others perceive her as. "Me an' my muver — my whole family, we more than dumb, we invisible." But towards the conclusion of the novel, Precious almost seems to find the motivation and desire to live up to her name, "I'm gonna break through or somebody gonna break through to me - I'm gonna learn, catch up, be normal, change my seat to the front of the class."

A Sexual Orientation Crisis in Fun Home

In class Friday, we debated if one could "turn" another gay, and brought up the nature vs. nurture idea with sexual orientation. Many felt one way, as others felt passionately about another. Personally, I realized I believe it isn't a black or white situation; some may certainly be born with a certain orientation as we've learned from genetic anomalies and others may have situations in life bring about unexpected preferences or desires.

In the case of Alison Bechdel, author of "Fun Home," I think her story is so interesting, because essences of both arguments find themselves to be true in Bechdel's life. Bechdel was born much like a "tomboy" as she naturally dislikes dresses and even recollects finding a woman alluring at the tender age of 3. However, her father's hidden sexual orientation, and the repression he tries to outlet through making Alison more feminine (although femininity does not always mean a girl is straight and vice versa), would certainly affect a developing child who is unsure of how the world works.

Millions of people have had the hardship of coming to the realization that they like what most of global society will frown upon: the same sex. So why did Alison Bechdel believe her hardship was interesting enough to become a graphic novel? It's impossible to pinpoint where exactly Bechdel "became" gay, but there are so many opposing forces coming to light in Bechdel throughout her "funhouse" like childhood, that it certainly made for a graphic novel of merit to be written.

Fun Home -- An Ironic Title Analysis

Alison Bechdel's "Fun Home" is a novel of what has become typical American growing-up for teens today. In rural Pennsylvania, Bechdel recalls issues of her relationship with her father, dysfunctional family life, suicide, gender roles, and especially sexual orientation. Bechdel documents in a graphic, textual memoir, her development of lesbian feelings and her eventual realization of her sexual orientation; all which did not add up to a "fun home."

I believe Bechdel uses an ironic, humorous title to show the struggles of growing up in American in a oxymoronic way. Teen life has become hard for most of America, but Bechdel shows the additional hardship of growing up in question of one's sexual orientation. Her experiences at the time they happen are certainly anything but "fun." The ironic title draws in a reader and allows them to understand Bechdel's humorous, light hearted way of looking at her own not always light-hearted life. There is also emphasis on the word "home" in title, as it is clear once Bechdel left for college, she began to understand herself and escape her dysfunction as she meets Joan, her first girlfriend and first sexual lesbian experience.

In analyzing a story, a title is always important to take into consideration as it is the first piece of information one takes in before they even begin reading. In Bechdel's choice, "Fun Home," says a lot, as explained it shows how she can look back and recollect with a sense of humor and peace, but it also really comments on how the American life is lived behind the scenes and the complete opposite portrayal families present on the outside.

Alvarez and Her Reason for a Story

Alvarez probably feels compelled to share this story to American readers and the rest of the literary world because of her proximity to the tale. Being a dominican woman as well, she is just as much a part of the cruelty and brutality the Mirabal suffered, as well is the rest of the nation. By telling the story, I believe Alvarez hopes to shed light on the bloodshed that was caused by the desire for the Dominican Republic to become free and to help prevent further tyranny in small nations that may not always be in the limelight, a the United States is.

This is, in fact, Alvarez's story as well. As aforementioned, being a Dominican-American poet, she has proximity and relation to the story, but it goes beyond that, as Alvarez met with and interviewed the only surviving Mirabal sister, Dede. Through Dede's painful recollection of the legend, Alvarez also injects her own voice into the story as she takes history and adds details of fiction to strengthen the story. Historical fiction is not an uncommon way for auteurs to bring tales of yesterday to light. For example, popular and control director, Quentin Tarantino took a very well known event, the Nazi occupancy of France, and added his own twist to the story to remind Americans and the rest of the world of it, so it is never forgotten; so it never happens again. I believe Alvarez formatted the story in such a way that she too could ensure that the death of the Mirabal's is never forgotten and never repeated.

The Styling of Alvarez in "In The Time of the Butterflies"

Alvarez, in her novel, In the Time of the Butterflies, employs an interesting technique in developing her four main characters; each chapter is told through the perspective of one of these four. In doing so, the reader is initially confused and thrown into a large pool of names, actions, and background that must be memorized and re-referenced. Eventually, however, Alvarez's method proves to be a highly effective one, as each character makes her way into the reader's mind on her own individual basis. As Minerva tells of her confusion and shock when learning of Trujillo's cruelty against Sinita's family, the reader learns exactly how Minerva felt, rather than hearing it from another one of the characters or a third-party narrator. It is a more personal connection to her emotions being made. The same can be said of any of the tragedies illuminated in the novel : Patria's stillbirth, Dede burying her three sisters, etc.

Although the styling takes getting used to, in hindsight, I cannot imagine a more effective way to meet each of the Mirabal sisters. And regardless of Dede initially telling us that the other three sisters are deceased before we even meet them, the plot still unfolds well, and perhaps may even be more entertaining as the reader is invited to completely plunge into the life of the girl's and follow their stories to their inevitable demise. I admire the risk Alvarez took in this method as well which again led to a solid, respected novel.

I Am An Emotional Creature : Title Analysis

Today, as I finished I Am An Emotional Creature, before anything else, I started to think over the title first. By discussing a woman's typically thought of emotional stature in a novel celebrating femininity, I had to question if Ensler had accidentally generalized and illuminated an oppressive cliche towards women. With PMS and a history of being considered frail and inferior to men, the title almost helps support this offensive belief. As an obvious and influential activist in the feminist movement, Ensler, in my opinion, wouldn't have purposely fed into that train of thought but it can't be denied that it wouldn't be hard for someone with a preconceived misogynist to come up with such an idea and be counter productive to Ensler's celebration.

As a male, the title also sparked thoughts that perhaps Ensler wasn't drawing light to women's oversensitivity but to insensitivity of men. Its common for oppressed groups of people to take what they are discriminated against, such as a woman's mood swing, and juxtapose it in such a way that it becomes less powerful. The example of Zora Neale Hurston who found being white "pale and boring" and black to be more powerful came to mind as I analyzed this thought. The same is also found in the black community with their use of the N word, a word that used to be used against them. Ensler has shown that she refrains from male bashing, and I would believe she does well, but it was worth entertaining and considering the thought.

I Am An Emotional Creature and The V-Day Movement.

        Ensler's other novel, I Am An Emotional Creature, is a strong supplement to The Vagina Monologues and her V-Day movement. Ensler strongly states, "I love being a girl," in her poem, right away claiming the same pride and strength in femininity that she did in her former book, which of course is the whole theme of celebrating vaginas or V-Day.  Ensler reiterates the themes of her feminist day without redundancy through a new approach. Whereas the monologues varied in views from different sources and demographics, I Am An Emotional Creature is a more personal message straight from Ensler, rather than interpretted by her.
              
     However, it is important while discussing I An Emotional Creature's strengths in feminism, it is as equally important to highlight it's weaker points in the feminist movement. By claiming all girls are emotional, it makes it possible for a quick interpretation of all women are therefore weak, irrational, and epitome of other PMS symptoms. Under a closer inspection, although not required (which again, draws a weak point), one can look and see that Ensler is again, rejoicing women.

"An Inner Monologue" for The Vagina Monologues

Below is an actual thought process that followed after just finishing reading Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues. It's written in a frantic, thought-to-thought pattern with little continuity, just as it happened. I was hoping to capture the struggle that as a guy, I face; the struggle between who I was raised and want to be and what society and peers tell me to be.

I just read the monologues,
finished 'em in one sitting, I did.
With forty-five minutes until class starts,
I'll walk over and wait outside the room,
There's a girl ahead of me
her thong peeks up and winks at me from atop her waist
Stop it, Steven, stop it!
I was born to a single mother,
I was raised in a hair salon, I work in one,
Women have always been everywhere
Stop it Steven, Stop it
But the TV tells me I want that,
She needs to be a notch in my bedpost
and the scratches on my back
Look at that ass, I need as much as I can get
My sex life? No, I'm a guy, that couldn't possibly be private,
I need as much as I can get, and I need to tell everyone about it.
I'll tell everyone about her ass.
I'll do just what the tube says,
Stop it, Steven, stop it.

The Vagina Monologues and Reaction

            Eve Ensler wrote The Vagina Monologues with the intent to not only celebrate femininity and raise awareness of the mistreatment of women, but to maybe incite feelings of shock and other reactions. This is clear in not only the language Ensler uses, such as words as controversial as "cunt", and the advertising endorsed for the performances of the monologues. Ensler posted the word "Vagina" in vibrant, large red lettering on buses, billboards, and other forms of advertising to stir up any audience who would see it. And all this occurs before one even indulges in the novel.
            The Vagina Monologues epitomizes the type of book that is described by the cliche, "unable to put down" while reading. Ensler's novel is entertaining because of its content and especially its shock value. Its scandalous nature easily peaks interest in its audiences, much as we saw illustrated by our own class in discussions of the novel. Many shared reactions of discomfort, shock, humor, and a jubilee of others. Regardless of what was being felt, the point remains that Ensler was able to incite true emotion in her readers, and more so, effectively get across and communicate the points she wished to.
         Personally, when I read some of the monologues, as alien as some of the concepts were to me, being a teen male, however, they were communicated in such a shocking way, I was able to still somehow relate through my inability to initially relate. By forcing me to feel shock, Ensler was also coercing me to understand that I did not understand the material, and look more deeply into it and try to be empathetic towards the entire female population. Without summoning genuine reactions from her audiences, Ensler may not have had the success she did with The Vagina Monologues and the V-Day movement.

The Vagina Monologues Analyzation

        Rather than writing a novel, Eve Ensler wrote The Vagina Monologues as verse to be performed. I believe this is relevant to the central theme of all the monologues in celebrating femininity. When writing such work to be performed, rather than quietly read to one's self, Ensler forces her audiences to be exposed to the naked vagina and react to it immediately, in front of other audiences, also reacting. I believe Ensler takes on a sort of "protestant" stance on women's oppression through her explicit depictions of intimate woman's parts and the universal stories that accompany them in each monologue. For example, in the piece "Hair," she uses very vivid words that almost disturb the reader, such as puffy and prickly, to shed light on the hypocrisy of an unkempt man demanding his wife be shaved or else he go outside the marriage for sexual satisfaction. As a male reader, I realized I slipped right into the theme's Ensler was discussing. I found myself hiding my book in my lap, or making sure its title was never exposed. To further accompany the literature, I even looked up a few of the performances on Youtube, making sure of course my volume was down or I had headphones in, so that no one thought I was being perverted or strange watching women discuss the beauty of their own parts. I even found myself much too proud or perhaps even embarrassed to see the performance being put on at my own school, despite the relevance of the play. As I thought more of it, I realized Ensler arrived at a valid point. All humans, regardless of gender, has some sort of part we consider humbled or private, and to deny it, or be embarrassed of it is silly and is to deny the fact that we are human. And to discourage the celebration of one's own or even the opposite gender's masculinity or femininity is just as oppressive as discouraging an entire gender as a whole. Ensler made me really connect to her work, because I wasn't only analyzing what she wrote as I read it, as I often would, but I had inadvertently stumbled into the themes she was discussing and became not only part of her audience but a part of her message as well.

Krik? Krak! Assessment Story One

In Danticat’s first story, “Children of the Sea,” the language used when writing from both narrators vary significantly. The first speaker, the anonymous male figure, has a more formal, educated style of writing, characterized by his use of English only, whereas the female writer mixes her native French/Creole language and English in her more random , bursted, thought-like styling. The styles not only give insight on who the characters are past what they tell us directly but illuminate smaller details of each narrator’s character. For example, the male figure using English as he’s fleeing his homeland where English is not the primary language shows the readers his disdain for his home, namely its government in this case. The same can be said of the female writer as her influential father, a proud countryman who dislikes the male figure for his rebelliousness, clearly is somewhat responsible for her mixed use of language. However, though staying true to their original stylings, when the two address eachother in their writing, they take on a more poetic, heartfelt feel to their writing, allowing the reader to more clearly see the affection the two share.

Given the universality of a mutual love that can’t be expressed or even a shunned love, the anonymity of the two speakers makes the story more personal on an emotion level. The reader is invited to be empathetic and feel that which Danticat vividly describes the two are feeling for each other; reminiscent, heartbroken, hopeless, etc. At the same time, it can also be assumed that as Danticat uses contradictions often in her writing, the anonymity is yet another one. As it makes it easier to relate to the two lovers, it also makes it easier to place them as just another nameless love in a story, much as the two were seen as from their government and the girl’s father. The text, “lots of people in this world whose names don't matter to anyone but themselves" supports this thought. In essence, they are common citizens, despite the male’s radio taboos, and easily forgettable, reminding the reader, that tragedy, of both large and small scale, happens not only in Haiti, but everywhere and is hardly remembered or even read about. 

Shake The Dust - Anis Mogjani

This is for the fat girls,

this is for the little brothers,

this is for the school yard wimps,

this is for the childhood bullies that tormented them,

this is for the former prom queen, 

this is for the milk crate ball players,

this is for the Night Time cereal eaters,

and for the retired elderly Wal-Mart store front door greeters…

Shake the Dust.

This is for the benches and the people sitting on them,
for the bus drivers driving a million broken hymns,
for the men who have to hold down three jobs simply to hold up their children, 

for the nighttime schoolers, and for the midnight bikers who are trying to fly

Shake the Dust
This is for the two year olds who can not be understood because they speak half English and half God, 

shake the dust,
for the girls whose brothers are going crazy!
For those gym class wall flowers and for the twelve year old kids afraid of taking public showers,
for the kid whose always late to class because he forgets the combination to his locker,
for a girl who loves somebody else shake the dust.
This is for the hard men...the hard men who want love but know it won't come...
For the ones who are forgotten,
for the ones the amendments do not stand up for,
for the ones who are told to speak only when spoken to and then are never spoken to.
Speak every time you stand so that you do not forget yourself,
never let a moment go by you that doesn't remind you that your heart beats 900 times a day...
That there are enough gallons of blood to make you an ocean.
Do not settle for letting these waves that settle and for the dust to collect in your veins.
This is for the celibate pedophile who keeps on struggling,

for the poetry teachers and for the people who go on vacation alone, 

and for the sweat that drips off of a Mick Jaggers singing lips, 

and for the shaking skirt on Tina Turner's shaking hips,

and for the heavens and for the hells for which Tina has lived. This!
Is for the tired and for the dreamers, 

for those families that want to be like the Cleavers,

 with perfectly made dinners with songs like Wally and the Beaver. 

This! Is for the big its, this is for the sexists, this is for the killers, this is for the Big House; 

pen sentenced cats becoming redeemers, 

and for the springtime that always shows up right after the winters,

 this is... This is for you...

Make sure that by the time the fishermen returns you are gone, because just like the days I burn at both ends, 

every time I write, every time I open my eyes I'm cutting out a part of myself to give to you. 

So Shake the Dust, and take me with you when you do none of this, none of this has fucking ever been for me, 

all that pushes and pulls,

pushes and pulls for you! 

So grab this world by it's clothes pins and shake it out again and again and jump on top for a spin 

and when you hop off shake it off for this is yours. 

 Make my words worth, make it not just another poem that I write not just like another poem like another night, 

make it like it's heavy above us all,

 walk into it, breath it in, let it crash through the halls of your arms,

 like the millions of years of millions poets coursing like blood pumping, 

pushing and making you live, 

shaking the dust!

So when the world knocks at your front door clutch the knob and open on up, 

running forward into it's wide spread greeting arms 

with your hands before you your fingertips trembling, 

though they may be.