No Longer Silent | Peggy Turnbull

We converge in a large room
to honor literature
and those who write it.

Most of us are white.
Most of us are women.
Most of us wear glasses.

Margaret Atwood reminds us
that if today’s government
were truly theocratic
most of us would be at home tonight.

We would not read novels.
We would not read,
would not have been taught

Looking at each other,
women of many sizes
and ages, we realize
that here is a rebellion
that suits us. To read
is to resist patriarchy.
And to write, even more so.

In this gathering,
I take the silent vow
of the insurgent:
to never again
feel shame about splashing
my life and thoughts upon the page,
to push past the boundaries
I find that shut off subjects
or voices from me.
I will resist the desire
to stay safe behind them.

Remember the young men,
painfully thin, despised,
purple lesions a pink triangle
of perceived transgression,
how they wrote poems
about their short lives
and left voices that still speak?

From now on, that is me.
Brave in intimacy with pen
and screen. Fearless
about what others think
of me. Ready to spit,
to surge, to erupt
with words.

More at https://peggyturnbull.blogspot.com/.