RAVING BEAUTIES

 

An interesting call for submissions I came across on the ravingly ravishing Emerging Writer's Blog. 

RAVING BEAUTIES - Sue Jones-Davies, Dee Orr, Anna Carteret and Fan Viner - are inviting submissions for their fourth collection of women’s poetry which will be published by BLOODAXE BOOKS in 2015. They want to join together with women poets to explore what it feels like to be a woman in her own skin. Here's what they have to say.....   

'however you feel about your body and whatever kind of writer you are – a published poet or impelled to write your first poem reading this – we want to hear from you. We can offer you the possibility of sharing your words with thousands of other women, and will consider previously published work as well as new poetry.

PLEASE SEND UP TO THREE POEMS BY MAY 1st 2014 to ravingbeauties@yahoo.co.uk

 

‘As feminists we want to support the incredible courage, insight 
and a dedication to the truth that challenges even the bravest of us 
when we ‘stop colluding with a culture that makes so 
many of us feel physically inadequate?’ 

(Oprah Winfrey)

Our relationship to our bodies is affected by many things including culture, religion, family, sex, hunger, pleasure and pain. This new collection is inspired by a passionate desire to celebrate our bodies in a fully realised way, leaving Barbie’s grotesque silent pliability in her box for good. Instead of pouting, our mouths have the power of language, our romantic fluttering hearts give and receive compassion,  skin ages with grace when we see beauty in everything,  a pierced belly button connects us to our ancestors and a belly needs to be strong before it’s flat.

Kim Addonizio’s inspiring poem brings together two heady desires -  to put on that red dress and to ‘wear’ that body. And own them both. Fearlessly.’

‘What Do Women Want?’

by Kim Addonizio

I want a red dress.
I want it flimsy and cheap,
I want it too tight, I want to wear it
until someone tears it off me.
I want it sleeveless and backless,
this dress, so no one has to guess
what’s underneath. I want to walk down
the street past Thrifty’s and the hardware store
with all those keys glittering in the window,
past Mr. and Mrs. Wong selling day-old
donuts in their café, past the Guerra brothers
slinging pigs from the truck and onto the dolly,
hoisting the slick snouts over their shoulders.
I want to walk like I’m the only
woman on earth and I can have my pick.
I want that red dress bad.
I want it to confirm your worst fears about me,
to show you how little I care about you
or anything except what
I want. When I find it, I’ll pull that garment
from its hanger like I’m choosing a body
to carry me into this world, through
the birth-cries and the love-cries too,
and I’ll wear it like bones, like skin,
it’ll be the goddamned
dress they bury me in.