- to boycott: from Captain Charles Boycott
- to bowdlerize: from Thomas Bowdler
- to gerrymander: from Elbridge Gerry
- to mesmerise: from Franz Mesmer
Not forgetting William Archibald Spooner whose tendancy to blunder verbally gave rise to the term Spoonerism. I’m not sure what the verb is - To Spoonerize?
My birthday was two days ago, and when I raced (ok grumped) down the stairs to check the post, I was rudely greeted by a letter from the Revenue Commissioners announcing the company I wound down last year had been selected for an audit.
AN AUDIT.
It’s such a small word, but so powerful. It’s been rolling around my head, pushing round an anxiety spring in my chest, which is getting tighter and tighter. I’m finding it hard to breathe. Stupidly - as the anxiety is mostly unfounded, other than my really shoddy filing, lost receipts and a filing system utilizing designer shoeboxes. Yikes - I should swap them for shoeboxes from Penneys.
So I rang a good friend who is a tax advisor for the kind of people who own islands in hot places. He talked me down from the ledge, and the spring unwound somewhat. Then we spent about an hour talking about his wife, who has been tackling chemo on and off for over a year now, whose cancer has spread from her breast to lymph to lungs, and now to her liver. She’s the same age as me. Of course then I realised that lost receipts and tax returns are completely irrelevant in the greater scheme. Letting the babybump slosh around in my self-induced panic and fear is just silly. So I’m casting my anxiety into the ether, and making a decision to deal with whatever comes up as best as I can.
Shite. That sounds quite grown-up.
By SUHEIR HAMMAD
leaves and leaving call october home
her daughter releases wood
smoke from her skin
rich in scorpio
blood survived the first
flood each new year marks
a circle around her
thick bark middle
this the month summer and
winter fall into each
other and leave orange
yellow ashes
the vibrancy of death
carry it all
coiled in my belly
cut on the cusp
of libra tail
tips the scales
tonight it is raining in
the tradition of my parents
wanted a daughter not a writer
happy birthday poet
who loves you baby
the way your mama did
under her breast the way your
father did under his breath
leaves and leaving have known
my name intimately
i harvest pumpkins
to offer the river eat
buttered phoenix meat
to celebrate a new year
new cipher for my belly
i got a new name
secret nobody knows
the cold can’t call me
leaving won’t know
where to find me
october gonna hide me
in her harvest in
her seasons
happy birthday daughter
of the falling
Suheir Hammad is a Palestinian-American poet, author and political activist who was born on October 1973 in Amman, Jordan to Palestinian refugee parents and immigrated with her family to Brooklyn, New York City when she was five years old. Her parents later moved to Staten Island.
Jaysus, it’s too early for sharing showers with monsters.
I like your hair….
Take that!! Aaaaannnd THAT! Hahahahahahaha.
The Ever Increasing Bump - Yesterday.
Sunday afternoon, a windy walk to the farmers market and pumpkin carving with the kids.
Tuna steaks marinated in soy, honey and smoked sea salt, with lime butter asparagus spears and potato rosti.
Morning. Poxy happy Dutch lift, grrr. Where’s the feckin coffee, eh? Eh??
Conference centre, Amsterdam. Amsterdam, as organised as Germany, but with a sense of humour…
Lonely in Gatwick. En route to Amsterdam for work.
IMG00587-20091011-1833.jpg
The word ‘witch’ pulled my eyes down into this poem when I saw it first. I don’t know if it’s a romantic notion of paganism, or just a lingering fondness for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but I like candles. (Not like that, you sicko) And studying the moon. And using words like ‘widdershins’. It might explain the tattoo that runs from my upper thigh to my heart and half way round my back.
To me the first stanza reminds me of my first decade of wildness, ‘braver at night’ and ‘out of mind’. I was young, and ‘possessed’. I put myself in danger, repeatedly. And ’not a woman, quite’.
The second stanza is where I found myself, despite all my best efforts - a ‘warm cave’ the home I bought and paid for myself, a husband, a child - a safe place where I ‘fixed the suppers’. An I too felt ‘misunderstood’, because in my heart I feel wild still, and here I am, digging a garden, wearing sensible shoes and adding insulation to the attic. (And liking it)
The third and final piece allows me, in an odd way to reconcile these two states of being - without having to betray one or the other. I think Anne is referring to Joan of Arc here, who was burnt at the stake for her beliefs, but personally I choose it to be about accepting my own nature, I will ‘wave my nude arms at villages’ and be a ‘survivor’ despite being judged harshly for my eccentricities. I am ‘not ashamed’. I am ‘a woman like that’. A witch, a wife, a woman with strong beliefs. And proud of it.
I have gone out, a possessed witch, haunting the black air, braver at night; dreaming evil, I have done my hitch over the plain houses, light by light: lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind. A woman like that is not a woman, quite. I have been her kind. I have found the warm caves in the woods, filled them with skillets, carvings, shelves, closets, silks, innumerable goods; fixed the suppers for the worms and the elves: whining, rearranging the disaligned. A woman like that is misunderstood. I have been her kind. I have ridden in your cart, driver, waved my nude arms at villages going by, learning the last bright routes, survivor where your flames still bite my thigh and my ribs crack where your wheels wind. A woman like that is not ashamed to die. I have been her kind.
anne sexton
