Still I Rise, Maya Angelou You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I'll rise. Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? ’Cause I walk like I've got oil wells Pumping in my living room. Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I'll rise. Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes? Shoulders falling down like teardrops, Weakened by my soulful cries? Does my haughtiness offend you? Don't you take it awful hard ’Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines Diggin’ in my own backyard. You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I’ll rise. Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surprise That I dance like I've got diamonds At the meeting of my thighs? Out of the huts of history’s shame I rise Up from a past that’s rooted in pain I rise I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I bear in the tide. Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise I rise I rise. -Woman Alone, Borderlands, Gloria Anzáldua, p. 174 Yo llamo a mujer, canto por mujer. Cubierta con serpientes vengo yo, al lugar del encuentro me acerco, repito conjuros para provocar amor. Clamo por mujer. Ya llego, llamo. A Woman Speaks, Audre Lorde Moon marked and touched by sun my magic is unwritten but when the sea turns back it will leave my shape behind. I seek no favor untouched by blood unrelenting as the curse of love permanent as my errors or my pride I do not mix love with pity nor hate with scorn and if you would know me look into the entrails of Uranus where the restless oceans pound. I do not dwell within my birth nor my divinities who am ageless and half-grown and still seeking my sisters witches in Dahomey wear me inside their coiled cloths as our mother did mourning. I have been woman for a long time beware my smile I am treacherous with old magic and the noon's new fury with all your wide futures promised I am woman and not white. Natsiká/Viaje, Celerina Patricia (mixteco) Tsíká tsaá nuú ñu’ún yo’ó nchaa tsana’á nuú ntsitsika kue natsanú nda’á tsi chí iso nuú nikanchí tsi kue yoo savi ra yo’o ingáyu tisi kue tú in núu ndó o Tu’un tsá viíñaa ndakani tsi naa ndaku’un ino Tu’un ñaa tsa a chi I takua ndaki on ichí Kue tu’un ñña kunu in ora ndakasía nuúgo Tu’un ñaa sa a yivi Con mis pies descalzos he recorrido el camino de los ancestros donde las abuelas caminaron con pasos firmes y contudentes bajo el sol de muchas primaveras para no morir aquí estoy con mi tenate de palabra con un canto a su historia y su memoria las palabras son fuerza/valor/camino y van tejiendo nuestro ser palabras que construyen mundos They shut me up in Prose, EMILY DICKINSON They shut me up in Prose – As when a little Girl They put me in the Closet – Because they liked me “still” – Still! Could themself have peeped – And seen my Brain – go round – They might as wise have lodged a Bird For Treason – in the Pound – Himself has but to will And easy as a Star Look down opon Captivity – And laugh – No more have I – Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing, Margaret Atwood The world is full of women who'd tell me I should be ashamed of myself if they had the chance. Quit dancing. Get some self-respect and a day job. Right. And minimum wage, and varicose veins, just standing in one place for eight hours behind a glass counter bundled up to the neck, instead of naked as a meat sandwich. Selling gloves, or something. Instead of what I do sell. You have to have talent to peddle a thing so nebulous and without material form. Exploited, they'd say. Yes, any way you cut it, but I've a choice of how, and I'll take the money. I do give value. Like preachers, I sell vision, like perfume ads, desire or its facsimile. Like jokes or war, it's all in the timing. I sell men back their worse suspicions: that everything's for sale, and piecemeal. They gaze at me and see a chain-saw murder just before it happens, when thigh, ass, inkblot, crevice, tit, and nipple are still connected. Such hatred leaps in them, my beery worshippers! That, or a bleary hopeless love. Seeing the rows of heads and upturned eyes, imploring but ready to snap at my ankles, I understand floods and earthquakes, and the urge to step on ants. I keep the beat, and dance for them because they can't. The music smells like foxes, crisp as heated metal searing the nostrils or humid as August, hazy and languorous as a looted city the day after, when all the rape's been done already, and the killing, and the survivors wander around looking for garbage to eat, and there's only a bleak exhaustion. Speaking of which, it's the smiling tires me out the most. This, and the pretence that I can't hear them. And I can't, because I'm after all a foreigner to them. The speech here is all warty gutturals, obvious as a slab of ham, but I come from the province of the gods where meanings are lilting and oblique. I don't let on to everyone, but lean close, and I'll whisper: My mother was raped by a holy swan. You believe that? You can take me out to dinner. That's what we tell all the husbands. There sure are a lot of dangerous birds around. Not that anyone here but you would understand. The rest of them would like to watch me and feel nothing. Reduce me to components as in a clock factory or abattoir. Crush out the mystery. Wall me up alive in my own body. They'd like to see through me, but nothing is more opaque than absolute transparency. Look--my feet don't hit the marble! Like breath or a balloon, I'm rising, I hover six inches in the air in my blazing swan-egg of light. You think I'm not a goddess? Try me. This is a torch song. Touch me and you'll burn. SANGRE NUESTRA, Susana Chávez Sangre mía, de alba, de luna partida, del silencio. de roca muerta, de mujer en cama, saltando al vacío, Abierta a la locura. Sangre clara y definida, fértil y semilla, Sangre incomprensible gira, Sangre liberación de sí misma, Sangre río de mis cantos, Mar de mis abismos. Sangre instante donde nazco adolorida, Nutrida de mi última presencia. “Susana bla bla bla…” MUJER, Maria Sabina Soy la mujer que sólo nací. Soy la mujer que sola caí. Soy la mujer que espera. Soy la mujer que examina. Soy la mujer que mira hacia adentro. Soy la mujer que mira debajo del agua. Soy la nadadora sagrada porque puedo nadar en lo grandioso. Soy la mujer luna. Soy la mujer que vuela. Soy la mujer aerolito. Soy la mujer constelación huarache. Soy la mujer constelación bastón. Soy la mujer estrella, Dios porque vengo recorriendo los lugares desde su origen. Soy la mujer de la brisa. Soy la mujer rocío fresco. Soy la mujer del alba. Soy la mujer del crepúsculo. Soy la mujer que brota. Soy la mujer arrancada. Soy la mujer que llora. Soy la mujer que chifla. Soy la mujer que hace sonar. Soy la mujer tamborista. Soy la mujer trompetista. Soy la mujer violinista. Soy la mujer que alegra porque soy la payasa sagrada. Soy la mujer piedra del sol. Soy la mujer luz de día. Soy la mujer que hace girar. Soy la mujer del cielo. Soy la mujer de bien. Soy la mujer espíritu porque puedo entrar y puedo salir en el reino de la muerte.