Unbound Poetry

i.

Meaning Meaning meaning meaning. Mean. ing. Mean inc, incorporation, collaboration, despair. A structure golden overarching there inside fat cats in wall street suits inside our own, love found on greasy fastfood floor in ball pits arches roman water? or sewers. gold money florins in our teeth, corn in cows reborn in cows in muscles ripping in our teeth, on our speech muscle

ii.

gertrudestein #mindblown if we could find these words our own. if we could find if we could find if we could find MY oversoul. community in death, but not in graveyards but not in bones but not but not but not community. community in life, in birth but not in past, in present future past spark of life of soul in mind in brain neural bridges hormones sparks of thought white light in synapses on bio tv screens. no screen nostalgia let it be let it be let it be scratches pages dirt and paper let it be let it be quills and let it be pigeon mites. forward surge, the alien of mind the text upon the screens the text within the quills NO surge force it forward the text upon the screens the text within the mind, white text white light spark of synapses NO the thoughts within the mind the thoughts upon the soul to talk with touch to taste your salt and KNOW cows lick salt and so do we.

iii.

matriarchal poetry. Poetry mothering, othering mothering taking. care

nannies, bitches, the afflicted childless. earth. earth home for seeds seminal growing up and out and around earth, seeds within earth earth by nature earth by april a woman with hands open like flower petals flower petals because she by earth a matrix lattice with numbered, plump vines earth watching over all of us only occasionally exploding throwing at us fire wind rain the shakes hell hath no fury like a woman scorned scorned scorned scorned beaten bruised abused torn tamed whip chair and pistol bullets like seeds seeds explode and open up, pushing at earth expanding coming into their own leaving mother all alone open exposed tired tired so tired. not to mention how much kids cost nowadays

iv.

Acker finds solace in Alice finds solace in Helen matriarchal poetry. stiletto women, leather women women women woman woman girl lady pearls flowers skirts heels mirrors vanities rouge lipstick eyeshadow mascara eyeliner coverup concealer paint thick over the body, the cage of the body, the cage of the “nude” carcass dragging around on skin rouge lipstick power makeup mine my face mine magazine’s face not mine skinny white photoshop the world’s crime against woman the scale the world’s crime against woman justice blind weighing that skirt this skirt pepper spray or rape whistle or pistol keys hurts every time they come out tweezers hurts every time they come out eyes hurts every time they come up and down thighs breasts girl i could just eat you up the chicken looks whole but its heart is exploded with all stuffed down its throat woman woman ghost half there fairy shrinking fun-sized friend fake false eyelashes tits tan lips ass face crimes against pretty women. other women? where?

v.

Action Girl Action Girlfriend Action Mom Adrenaline Makeover Affirmative Action Girl Alpha Bitch Amazon Brigade Amazonian Beauty Anime Chinese Girl Apron Matron Asian Airhead Asian Babymama Badass Princess Bait-and-Switch Lesbians The Baroness Bastard Girlfriend Bathing Beauty Battleaxe Nurse Beastess Beautiful All Along Beautiful Slave Girl Beauty, Brains and Brawn Beauty Mark Bedlah Babe Belly Dancer Big Beautiful Woman Biker Babe Black Boss Lady Black Magician Girl Black Widow Blonde Republican Sex Kitten Blondes are Evil Bodyguard Babes Bratty Teenage Daughter Brawn Hilda Bridezilla Bridge Bunnies Broken Bird Butter Face Butch Lesbian Camp Follower Catholic School Girls Rule The Chanteuse The Cheerleader The Chick Chickification The Chief's Daughter Classy Cat-Burglar Clingy Jealous Girl College Widow Conceive and Kill Cool Big Sis Cool Old Lady Cosplay Otaku Girl Crazy Cat Lady Creepy Housekeeper Cute Clumsy Girl Cute Ghost Girl Cute Monster Girl Cute Sports Club Manager Cute Witch The Cutie Daddy's Girl Daddy's Little Villain Damsel Errant Damsel in Distress Damsel Out Of Distress Dark Action Girl Dark Magical Girl Dark Mistress Decoy Damsel Defecting for Love Deliberately Distressed Damsel Determined Homesteader's Wife Determined Widow Dirty Harriet Dirty Old Woman Disposable Sex Worker Disposable Woman Distracted by the Luxury Dominatrix Dragon Lady Earth Mother Education Mama Elegant Gothic Lolita Emotionless Girl English Rose Estrogen Brigade Even the Girls Want Her Everything's Better with Princesses Evil Diva Evil Matriarch Extraordinarily Empowered Girl False Widow The Fake Cutie Fangirl Fanservice Extra Farmer's Daughter The Fashionista Fat Girl Faux Action Girl Female Misogynist Female Monster Surprise Feminine Women Can Cook Femininity Failure Femme Fatale Fille Fatale Final Girl The Flapper Four Girl Ensemble Fragile Flower French Maid Gag Boobs Gambler Groupies Gamer Chick Gaussian Girl Girl Friday Girl Group Girl in a Box Girl in the Tower Girl Next Door Girl of the Week Girl Posse Girls Love Stuffed Animals Girls with Guns Girls with Moustaches Girl with Psycho Weapon Girlish Pigtails Girly Bruiser Girly Girl Glamorous Single Mother Glamorous Wartime Singer Godiva Hair God Save Us from the Queen! Go-Getter Girl Good Bad Girl Good Girl Gone Bad Gossipy Hens Graceful Ladies Like Purple Grande Dame Granny Classic Granola Girl Green-Skinned Space Babe Hackette Hard-Drinking Party Girl Harp of Femininity Haunted Heroine The Hecate Sisters Hello, Nurse! Heroic Seductress Hero's Muse High-Class Call Girl High Heel-Face Turn The High Queen Hooker with a Heart of Gold Hot Gypsy Woman Hot Scientist Hot Scoop Hot Witch Housewife Huge Schoolgirl Humanoid Female Animal Hysterical Woman Ice Queen Idol Singer Ill Girl Indian Maiden Innocent Fanservice Girl The Ingenue Innocent Flower Girl Iron Lady Jail Bait Jeanne d'Archétype Jewish American Princess Jewish Mother Joshikousei Jungle Princess Kawaiiko Kick Chick Kicking Ass in All Her Finery Kindly Housekeeper The Lad-ette Lady Drunk Ladyella Lady in Red Lady Macbeth Lady-Not-Appearing-in-This-Game Lady of Adventure Lady of Black Magic Lady of War The Lady's Favour Leg Cling Legal Jail Bait Lesbian Cop Lesbian Jock Lesbian Vampire Light Feminine and Dark Feminine Lipstick and Load Montage Lipstick Lesbian Little Dead Riding Hood Little Girls Kick Shins Little Miss Almighty Little Miss Badass Little Miss Con Artist Little Old Lady Investigates Little Red Fighting Hood Little Sister Heroine Lonely Doll Girl Lovable Alpha Bitch Lovely Angels Lovely Assistant Madonna-Whore Complex Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter Mafia Princess Magical Girl Magical Girlfriend  Magical Girl Warrior Magical Nanny Magic Idol Singer Maiden Aunt Mama Bear Manic Pixie Dream Girl Mary Sue Mata Hari Matron Chaperone Meganekko Mega Twintails Meido Misplaced Kindergarten Teacher Miss Kitty Missing Mom Mistress and Servant Boy Monogender Monsters Mrs. Claus Mrs. Robinson Ms. Fanservice The Muse My Beloved Smother Mysterious Waif Mystical Waif Naginatas Are Feminine Naïve Everygirl Naughty by Night Naughty Nuns Naughty Nurse Outfit Nerd Nanny Neutral Female Never a Self-Made Woman Never Mess with Granny Ninja Maid Office Lady Ojou Old Maid Onee-sama One of the Boys The Ophelia Outdoorsy Gal Passionate Sports Girl Perky Female Minion Perky Goth Petite Pride Pirate Girl Pit Girls Playboy Bunny Plucky Girl Plucky Office Girl Politically-Active Princess Pregnant Badass Pregnant Hostage Princess Classic Princess Phase Proper Lady Psycho Lesbian Quickly Demoted Woman Rebellious Princess Reluctant Fanservice Girl Rich Bitch Robot Girl Sassy Black Woman Scary Librarian Schoolgirl Lesbians School Nurse Schoolmarm Screaming Woman Scullery Maid Seashell Bra Seemingly Wholesome '50s Girl Sensei-chan Sexy Secretary Sexy Stewardess Shameless Fanservice Girl Shiksa Goddess Shorttank Single Mom Stripper Small Girl, Big  Gun Smitten Teenage Girl Soap Box Sadie Socialite Soccer Mom Southern Belle Spaceship Girl Spicy Latina Spirited Young Lady Spoiled Sweet Sports Widow The Squadette Stage Mom Statuesque Stunner Streetwalker Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl Sweater Girl Sweet Polly Oliver Swing Low Sweet Harriet Taking the Veil Team Mom Territorial Smurfette The Tease Tiny Tyrannical Girl Token Lesbian Token Yuri Girls Tomboy Tomboy Princess Tomboy with a Girly Streak Town Girls The Ugly Guy's Hot Daughter Uncanny Valley Girl Unrequited Tragic Maiden Vain Sorceress Valley Girl Valkyries The Vamp Violently Protective Girlfriend White-Dwarf Starlet White Magician Girl Wicked Stepmother Wicked Witch Widow Woman Widow Witch Winter Royal Lady Woman in Black Woman in White Woman Scorned The Woman Wearing the Queenly Mask World's Most Beautiful Woman Wrench Wench Yamato Nadeshiko Yaoi Fangirl Yoko Oh No Patriarchal Poetry

vi.

matriarchal poetry. womyn with biceps the size of their heads and eyes bigger than their stomachs not Pollock not Picasso more Dalí colorful melting blending dripping one into another dripping into each other fluid blending rippling no Rothko squares exchanging glances pearls

universal poetry. stars exploding expanding living breathing taking up their space taking oxygen making light beauty life fueling self forcing forward moving stopping and relaxing giving holding loving living leaving moving staying praying rushing through the universe space wide and unexplored space wild untamed deadly space beautiful and threatening people stars doing all being all living

unbound. stories. no more living dying fighting loving teaching learning stories. living, dying, half-life, quarter, living one day, living sometimes. dying once twice one and three-quarters. learning learning learning learning learning learning.

is it non sense or is it more sense? it is mind unbound abound around rebound ricochet reflect reject mazes walls limits tasers cops with night sticks to the stars. it is an end to bars. reaching Fahrenheits, encompassing, and passing; universal in birth, death and dying, and maybe misery that is story. 

....

For my final web event, I wanted to expand on the last web event I wrote, which was about patriarchy and media. I didn't feel that I was able to fully express ways in which patriarchy and media could become unbound and I wanted to address that in this event. I was very fascinated with the concept of turning patriarchal media against the patriarchy, so I created a piece of non-mimetic poetry in the hopes that I could talk about media without being bound by patriarchy. My biggest influence was Gertrude Stein's piece "Patriarchal Poetry", but I drew inspiration from many of the texts we've read throughout the class, such as Kathy Acker's "Seeing Gender" and The Book of Salt.

When I discussed this project with Anne, one of the biggest issues with it that came up was the issue of accessibility. Non-mimesis is not an inherently accessible "language" to read in, and I know I struggled a lot with the non-mimetic texts I read in preparation for this project. So I wanted to do an in-depth explanation of the piece (or rather, the way I interpret the piece). 

i. was a discussion of the commodification of media in our society. bell hooks, in her essay "Performance Practice as a Site of Opposition", talks about commodified media and that it "can rarely address the local in a meaningful way, because the primacy of addressing the local is sacrificed to the desire to engage a wider audience of paying consumers." With this piece, I wanted to address the homogenization of media for consumers and the passivity with which consumers are supposed to internalize this media. I also wanted to address that the structures of patriarchy that are marketed to us through this media take place in a context of thousands of years of capitalist oppression. 

In ii. I wanted to take on forms of media in the patriarchy and what we may or may not be trying to express or find by using this media - which I believe is some universal link between us and the rest of the world (death, as Judith Butler claims, or birth, as Vaughn talked about in class). I wanted to show that we have experienced this desire and expressed it throughout history - whether on typewriters or twitter - and that though we may feel nostalgia for the past, we must move on and look to the future if we are to unbind ourselves from patriarchy. I also used language concerning animals a lot in this piece (in this part and in its entirety) to remind the reader that they are an animal despite all the human pretensions and because I was particularly struck by the comment the eco-feminism teach-in group made in class about the way the language used to describe animals and the language used to describe women was sometimes the same. I was curious - if the language I used to describe the oppression that feminists fight against was the language of commodification and violence used against animals, would it be more effective? Less?

iii. was where I considered the implications of the patriarchy's version of a female body - an object to be enjoyed/ruled over and a vessel of motherhood. Because I was influenced by Gertrude Stein's "Patriarchal Poetry", I wanted to think about the word 'matriarchy' and its associations. It made me think a lot about the consequences of being a caretaker and the image of "mother earth", which I had always considered feminist, in a patriarchal context. 

In iv., I wanted to consider the patriarchy's version of a female mind. I asked the question - if patriarchal poetry is what I experience every day, what is matriarchal poetry? I found that it could be the characters that women can identify with despite their presence in the patriarchy - as Alice from Alice in Wonderland was to Kathy Acker as a child. Much of this section had to do with appearance - patriarchal standards of beauty, the agency one has or does not have in their appearance, the expectations of beauty, and the visibility of normatively beautiful women in media. I wanted to acknowledge that othered women simply do not seem to exist in patriarchal media.

The fifth section is a list of "Always Female" tropes from the website TVTropes.org. I included this as an example of bound poetry, patriarchal poetry. In this list there is a rainbow of descriptors, all of them shallow. I wanted to keep this in as an example of universal poetry - unbound poetry - gone wrong; to show that there does not just need to be a variety of identies being portrayed in media, but characters with depth, true-to-life characters, characters with agency and goals and power. 

vi. is an exploration of unbound poetry. I found that it was much easier to voice an unbound future for media in the abstractions of non-mimesis. I had struggled with doing so in my previous web event, and I think that these stanzas are, ironically, clearer about what unbound media could be. It is about refusing limits and supplying an energy to our new mythology so that we can rocket beyond our past, push forward into a completely new exploration of consciousness and community. In writing this section, I found that non-mimesis could be an effective method of subverting patriarchy, as these were ideas that I found I could not shape in patriarchal language.

However, after writing this piece, I was unsure if I had accomplished my goal or not. Most of the time, I felt like I was making too much sense for this piece to really be non-mimetic. And then I wondered - if I could explain this piece in patriarchal terms (assuming standard English is patriarchal) was it still unbound from patriarchy? Were the ideas unbound from patriarchy? Was the language? One and not the other? I don't feel, as an author, that is entirely up for me to decide. I think the judgment of whether or not it is feminist - or if it is more or less feminist than other media, as I'd like to deal on a spectrum rather than a binary - is primarily up to the readers. I'm unsure if this piece can do any damage to the patriarchy on its own - but as art is all about collaboration and inspiration, perhaps it can inspire others to do the same.