Being a woman doesn’t have one sole definition. Womanhood is a prism, and it’s an experience that’s different for everyone. However, there’s instances where our world views and experiences might collide. Whether you’re a habitual poetry reader or not, accompany me in celebrating women in one of art’s purest forms. Here are ten poems written by women that express the diversity that entails being a woman; enjoy.
Desire
- The Anactoria Poem
By: Sappho; Translated by: Jim Powell
Retrieved from: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/161660/the-anactoria-poem
Some say thronging cavalry, some say foot soldiers,
others call a fleet the most beautiful of
sights the dark earth offers, but I say it’s what-
ever you love best.
And it’s easy to make this understood by
everyone, for she who surpassed all human
kind in beauty, Helen, abandoning her
husband—that best of
men—went sailing off to the shores of Troy and
never spent a thought on her child or loving
parents: when the goddess seduced her wits and
left her to wander,
she forgot them all, she could not remember
anything but longing, and lightly straying
aside, lost her way. But that reminds me
now: Anactória,
she’s not here, and I’d rather see her lovely
step, her sparkling glance and her face than gaze on
all the troops in Lydia in their chariots and
glittering armor.
Womanhood
- Phenomenal Woman
By: Maya Angelou
Retrieved from: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48985/phenomenal-woman
Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I’m telling lies.
I say,
It’s in the reach of my arms,
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.
I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It’s the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.
Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can’t touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them,
They say they still can’t see.
I say,
It’s in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.
Now you understand
Just why my head’s not bowed.
I don’t shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing,
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It’s in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need for my care.
’Cause I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.
Marriage
- The Applicant
By: Sylvia Plath
Retrieved from: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/57419/the-applicant
First, are you our sort of a person?
Do you wear
A glass eye, false teeth or a crutch,
A brace or a hook,
Rubber breasts or a rubber crotch,
Stitches to show something’s missing? No, no? Then
How can we give you a thing?
Stop crying.
Open your hand.
Empty? Empty. Here is a hand
To fill it and willing
To bring teacups and roll away headaches
And do whatever you tell it.
Will you marry it?
It is guaranteed
To thumb shut your eyes at the end
And dissolve of sorrow.
We make new stock from the salt.
I notice you are stark naked.
How about this suit——
Black and stiff, but not a bad fit.
Will you marry it?
It is waterproof, shatterproof, proof
Against fire and bombs through the roof.
Believe me, they’ll bury you in it.
Now your head, excuse me, is empty.
I have the ticket for that.
Come here, sweetie, out of the closet.
Well, what do you think of that?
Naked as paper to start
But in twenty-five years she’ll be silver,
In fifty, gold.
A living doll, everywhere you look.
It can sew, it can cook,
It can talk, talk, talk.
It works, there is nothing wrong with it.
You have a hole, it’s a poultice.
You have an eye, it’s an image.
My boy, it’s your last resort.
Will you marry it, marry it, marry it.
Identity
- I’m Nobody! Who are you?
By: Emily Dickinson
Retrieved from: https://poets.org/poem/im-nobody-who-are-you-260
I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you – Nobody – too?
Then there’s a pair of us!
Don’t tell! they’d advertise – you know!
How dreary – to be – Somebody!
How public – like a Frog –
To tell one’s name – the livelong June –
To an admiring Bog!
Fluctuating love
- “I loved you first: but afterwards your love”
Retrieved from: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50507/i-loved-you-first-but-afterwards-your-love
Poca favilla gran fiamma seconda. – Dante
Ogni altra cosa, ogni pensier va fore,
E sol ivi con voi rimansi amore. – Petrarca
I loved you first: but afterwards your love
Outsoaring mine, sang such a loftier song
As drowned the friendly cooings of my dove.
Which owes the other most? my love was long,
And yours one moment seemed to wax more strong;
I loved and guessed at you, you construed me
And loved me for what might or might not be –
Nay, weights and measures do us both a wrong.
For verily love knows not ‘mine’ or ‘thine;’
With separate ‘I’ and ‘thou’ free love has done,
For one is both and both are one in love:
Rich love knows nought of ‘thine that is not mine;’
Both have the strength and both the length thereof,
Both of us, of the love which makes us one.
Motherhood
- Mothers
By: Nikki Giovanni
Retrieved from: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/48228/mothers
the last time i was home
to see my mother we kissed
exchanged pleasantries
and unpleasantries pulled a warm
comforting silence around
us and read separate books
i remember the first time
i consciously saw her
we were living in a three room
apartment on burns avenue
mommy always sat in the dark
i don’t know how i knew that but she did
that night i stumbled into the kitchen
maybe because i’ve always been
a night person or perhaps because i had wet
the bed
she was sitting on a chair
the room was bathed in moonlight diffused through
those thousands of panes landlords who rented
to people with children were prone to put in windows
she may have been smoking but maybe not
her hair was three-quarters her height
which made me a strong believer in the samson myth
and very black
i’m sure i just hung there by the door
i remember thinking: what a beautiful lady
she was very deliberately waiting
perhaps for my father to come home
from his night job or maybe for a dream
that had promised to come by
“come here” she said “i’ll teach you
a poem: i see the moon
the moon sees me
god bless the moon
and god bless me”
i taught it to my son
who recited it for her
just to say we must learn
to bear the pleasures
as we have borne the pains
Diversity
- Four-Eyed Girls
By: Nancy Lee
Retrieved from: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/155336/four-eyed-girls
I’m sitting at the bar
with Mary Katherine Gallagher
watching prospects grind hope
into anything blond.
I’ve peeled off wool tights so
my pleated skirt flashes white
cotton panties when I cross
and uncross. No one notices.
For fun, we switch eyeglasses.
In hers, I drown. Fish wriggle
and shimmer, groove beyond
my reach. She says
Through these glasses
everyone looks thinner. She says,
Why aren’t there more girls
like us in movies? I tell her
there are plenty, floating
in rivers, folded in dumpsters,
naked, nameless. She says,
It’s time for another shooter.
Something to clean the sink
something the bartender
will set on fire, something
that hurts going down.
Culture and relationships
- Valentine
Retreived from: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/49589/valentine-56d22bd28689d
Cherry plums suck a week’s soak,
overnight they explode into the scenery of before
your touch. The curtains open on the end of our past.
Pink trumpets on the vines bare to the hummingbirds.
Butterflies unclasp from the purse of their couplings, they
light and open on the doubled hands of eucalyptus fronds.
They sip from the pistils for seven generations that bear
them through another tongue as the first year of our
punishing mathematic begins clicking the calendar
forward. They land like seasoned rocks on the
decks of the cliffs. They take another turn
on the spiral of life where the blossoms
blush & pale in a day of dirty dawn
where the ghost of you webs
your limbs through branches
of cherry plum. Rare bird,
extinct color, you stay in
my dreams in x-ray. In
rerun, the bone of you
stripping sweethearts
folds and layers the
shedding petals of
my grief into a
decayed holo-
gram—my
for ever
empty
art.
Sisterhood
By: Emily Dickinson
Retrieved from: https://allpoetry.com/One-Sister-have-I-in-our-house
14
One Sister have I in our house,
And one, a hedge away.
There’s only one recorded,
But both belong to me.
One came the road that I came—
And wore my last year’s gown—
The other, as a bird her nest,
Builded our hearts among.
She did not sing as we did—
It was a different tune—
Herself to her a music
As Bumble bee of June.
Today is far from Childhood—
But up and down the hills
I held her hand the tighter—
Which shortened all the miles—
And still her hum
The years among,
Deceives the Butterfly;
Still in her Eye
The Violets lie
Mouldered this many May.
I spilt the dew—
But took the morn—
I chose this single star
From out the wide night’s numbers—
Sue – forevermore!
Self-discovery
By: Julia de Burgos
Retrieved from: https://allpoetry.com/Julia-de-Burgos
What a long caress of action goes up through my veins
wide to go around!
I see myself motionless of meat waiting for the fight
between man and my soul,
and I feel invincible
because my now is strong column of advance
in the dawn that points,
It is a cry of an empty heart in the ship of the world,
It is the effort of a wave lying on a firm beach
to wipe out slander from broken consciences.
between man and my soul
sword has been crossed…
(The mind is an interpreter that translates the force
in ideas moving forward.)
On my side the conscience of man fights
in a sun of principles on the am of the souls.
In the hand of man the hollow is defended
molded sculpture of rules over time.
The fight has sounded…
And I feel touched…
I am over the centuries with the fierceness of waves…
No one touches the shadow that my impulse drove away!
The poems presented were an attempt to make a brief explanation of the woman’s experience, evidently it’s not an exhaustive list. What defines being a woman is an individual experience; all of us are special in our own way. Being a woman, although it has its hardships, is a beautiful experience and it should be celebrated everyday, not just during Women’s History Month. That being said, remember to love and respect yourself and the women in your life; your existence is important.