Thursday, April 27, 2017

Mushrooms

by Neil Gaiman  
THE MUSHROOM HUNTERS 
Science, as you know, my little one, is the study
of the nature and behaviour of the universe.
It’s based on observation, on experiment, and measurement,
and the formulation of laws to describe the facts revealed.
In the old times, they say, the men came already fitted with brains
designed to follow flesh-beasts at a run,
to hurdle blindly into the unknown,
and then to find their way back home when lost
with a slain antelope to carry between them.
Or, on bad hunting days, nothing.
The women, who did not need to run down prey,
had brains that spotted landmarks and made paths between them
left at the thorn bush and across the scree
and look down in the bole of the half-fallen tree,
because sometimes there are mushrooms.
Before the flint club, or flint butcher’s tools,
The first tool of all was a sling for the baby
to keep our hands free
and something to put the berries and the mushrooms in,
the roots and the good leaves, the seeds and the crawlers.
Then a flint pestle to smash, to crush, to grind or break.
And sometimes men chased the beasts
into the deep woods,
and never came back.
Some mushrooms will kill you,
while some will show you gods
and some will feed the hunger in our bellies. Identify.
Others will kill us if we eat them raw,
and kill us again if we cook them once,
but if we boil them up in spring water, and pour the water away,
and then boil them once more, and pour the water away,
only then can we eat them safely. Observe.
Observe childbirth, measure the swell of bellies and the shape of breasts,
and through experience discover how to bring babies safely into the world.
Observe everything.
And the mushroom hunters walk the ways they walk
and watch the world, and see what they observe.
And some of them would thrive and lick their lips,
While others clutched their stomachs and expired.
So laws are made and handed down on what is safe. Formulate.
The tools we make to build our lives:
our clothes, our food, our path home…
all these things we base on observation,
on experiment, on measurement, on truth.
And science, you remember, is the study
of the nature and behaviour of the universe,
based on observation, experiment, and measurement,
and the formulation of laws to describe these facts.
The race continues. An early scientist
drew beasts upon the walls of caves
to show her children, now all fat on mushrooms
and on berries, what would be safe to hunt.
The men go running on after beasts.
The scientists walk more slowly, over to the brow of the hill
and down to the water’s edge and past the place where the red clay runs.
They are carrying their babies in the slings they made,
freeing their hands to pick the mushrooms.




Photograph by Molly Walsh / Academy of American Poets

Saturday, April 22, 2017

Pomegranate by Kevin Pilkington


Pomegranate

Kevin Pilkington


A woman walks by the bench I’m sitting on
with her dog that looks part Lab, part Buick,
stops and asks if I would like to dance.
I smile, tell her of course I do. We decide
on a waltz that she begins to hum.

We spin and sway across the street in between
parked cars and I can tell she realizes
she chose a man who understands the rhythm
of sand, the boundaries of thought. We glide
and Fred and Ginger might come to mind or
a breeze filled with the scent of flowers of your choice.
Coffee stops flowing as a waitress stares out the window
of a diner while I lead my partner back across the street.

When we come to the end of our dance,
we compliment each other and to repay the favor
I tell her to be careful since the world comes to an end
three blocks to the east of where we stand. Then
I remind her as long as there is a ’59 Cadillac parked
somewhere in a backyard between here and Boise
she will dance again.

As she leaves content with her dog, its tail wagging
like gossip, I am convinced now more than ever
that I once held hundreds of roses in my hands
the first time I cut open a pomegranate.


Wednesday, April 05, 2017

H.D. "The Walls Do Not Fall"

The following excerpt is Section 15 of “The Walls Do Not Fall” which is included in H.D.’s Collected Poems, 1912-1944:

Too old to be useful
(whether in years of experience,

we are the same lot)
not old enough to be dead,

we are the keepers of the secret,
the carriers, the spinners

of the rare intangible thread
that binds all humanity

to ancient wisdom,
to antiquity;

our joy is unique, to us,
grape, knife, cup, wheat

are symbols in eternity,
and every concrete object

has abstract value, is timeless
in the dream parallel

whose relative sigil has not changed
since Nineveh and Babel.

Friday, March 03, 2017

"Plot" by Elizabeth Willis



Plot
Elizabeth Willis

The second stage is sleeplessness.
At first there was worry.
The third stage is “ordinary people.”
The fourth: what to do.

The first stage is chaos.
The second is invention.
The steam engine. The napkin.
The picnic table. Money.

First you were walking across a bridge.
Then you were flying.
Then you were sweeping the floor.

First comes love.
Then nausea.

First pleasure.
Just a little pinch.

First the pupa, then the wings.
Wordlessness. Night.

The first thing is labor.
The second, we don’t know.

First comes water.
Then air.
A hurricane. A sigh.
Abigail. Norma. Laquisha.
Molly. Sylvia. Roxanne.
Temperance. Emma. Delilah.
Daphne. Wilhelmina. Georgette.
Landfall. Rubble.

The first stage was childhood.
The second stage was Beatrice.

The first stage was Beatrice.
The second stage was hell.

First the city, then the forest.
The second stage was Virgil.
The third stage was expurgated.
The fourth went unnoticed.
The last stage was a letter.
A single meaningless hum.

What came first the money launderers or the flatterers.
What came first the Catherine wheel or the icebox.

In the beginning a voice.
In the beginning paramecia.

First carbon.
Then electricity.
Then shoes.

In the beginning a tree.

Before the house, a cave.
Before the cave, a swamp.
Before the swamp, a desert.

The garden was in the middle.
Between the sidewalk and the street.

In the beginning soup.

Then tables. The stock market.
Things on four legs.

In the beginning I was frightened.
Then the darkness told a joke.

Which came first the river or the bank.
Which came first the priest or the undertaker.
Which came first crime or punishment.
Which came first the firemen or the cops.
Which came first conquest or discovery.
The fork or the spoon.
The point or the lineup.
The FBI or the CIA.

Which came first gravity or grace.
Which came first cotton or wool.
Which came first the slaver or the ship.
Which came first the ankle or the wing.
The hummingbird or the frog.
Puberty or ideology.

Which came first memory or forgiveness.
Which came first prohibition or women’s suffrage.
Coffee or tea.

What came first yes or no.
What comes first silver or gold.
Porcelain or silk.
Pen or paper.

What came first Kyoto or Dresden.
What came first the renaissance or the reformation.
What would you rather be a rabbit or a duck.
Who is more powerful Mephistopheles or Marguerite.
Who’s it going to be me or you.
What would you rather do burn or drown.

In the beginning I was invincible.
In the middle I came apart.

First there was a library then there was a café.
Then there was a wall of glass.

Which came first The Melancholy of Departure or The Double Dream of Spring.

Which came first repression or resistance.
Grammar or syntax.
The siren or the gunshot.
Which came first granite or marble.
The army or the drone.
The whistling or the blackbird.
Which came first sugar or rum. Pineapple or bananas.
The senate or the corporation.

Was the story half-empty or half-full.

What feels better pity or anger.
What scares you more life or death.
What describes you best, the steam in the engine or a penny on the tracks.
What were you thinking, a whimper or a bang.
What would you choose, a sandwich or a phone call.
What did you expect, a question or an answer.
A piano or a clock.
Take all the time you want.


Elizabeth Willis is the author of “Alive: New and Selected Poems,” a finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize.

Friday, February 17, 2017

One Billion Rising Budapest Raffle!


Thursday, February 16, 2017

OBR Budapest Saturday night!

(english scroll down)

Mit csinálsz szombat este?
Gyere, találkozz velünk a Barrio Del Tango bárban Pesten!

Akik még nem ismerik a Break the Chain táncot, Szántó Nikolett autóversenyző vezetésével részt vehetnek az estet megelőző táncpróbán 7-től.

Az este 8-kor ismerkedéssel és tombolajegy árusítással kezdődik. Bombera Kriszta segítségével bemutatjuk vendégeinket, a három női és nőket segítő civil szervezetet. A Break the Chain táncot Arany Timi énekkíséretében táncolhatjuk el, az est elején, majd újra a végén.

Az „Open Mic” -szabad mikrofon részben slamköltők és feministák szólnak hozzánk. Házigazdáink, a Barrio del Tango művészei, Tímea és Simon tangóbemutatót tartanak nekünk, majd a Tilos Rádió (női) DJ-je, Sanyi Tilos zenéjére táncolhatunk a lenti parketten. Ő felelt a történelmi pesti Women’s March zenei hátteréért is. A fenti studióban az iskolateremtő Brezina Kinga tart NIA táncórát. Ha még sosem próbáltad, most biztos beleszeretsz ebbe a mozgásformába!

Mire a hangulat a tetőfokára hág, Zsuzsó Shererah Sárközy hastáncosnő előadását is megnézhetjük. Az értékes művészeti tombolanyereményeket az est végén sorsoljuk ki. Ha eljössz, úgy tudod támogatni a nők kizsákmányolása és a nők elleni erőszak elleni küzdelmet, hogy közben energiával és jókedvvel telítődsz.

https://www.facebook.com/events/465202520270111/

Támogathatsz és táncolhatsz az Est a Kizsákmányolás Ellen rendezvényen  február 18-án, vagy támogatásodat elutalhatod az alábbi bankszámlákra is:

  • Józan Babák : Magnet Bank 16200216-17085906-000000000
  • JÓL-LÉT Alapítvány : Magnet Bank HU48 16200151-18528549-00000000
  • Magyar Női Érdekérvényesítő Szövetség (Női Érdek) : Unicredit Bank HU32 10918001- 00000019-84720012


  • #riseinsolidarity #1billionrising #womensmarch

    What are you doing Saturday night?

    We hope to see you at the Barrio Del Tango.

    For those who want to learn or practice first-time the the Break the Chain dance, rehearsal starts at 7 pm with Nikolett Szántó, the motorcar drift champion.

    The evening’s program will start at 8 pm with mingling and raffle tickets. We will introduce our three women’s right NGOs with the help of Kriszta Bombera. The community dance performance of Break the Chain comes right after this to the live performance by singer Timi Arany.

    There will be an Open Mic and slam poets and feminists will perform. Our hosts for the evening at Barrio del tango, Tímea and Simon, will present a tango performance. The guest (woman) DJ, Sanyi Tilos, will run our dance floor. (She was responsible for the music of the historic Women’s March in Budapest earlier this year.) Upstairs will be a NIA dance session. (If you haven’t tried it, our awesome instructor, Kinga Brezina will make you fall in love with it.)

    Later in the night the belly dancers , Zsuzsó Shererah Sárközy’s group and guest, will perform for us! She might even teach us a few moves! The winners of the prestigous art object raffle will be announced right before the event closes with another Break the Chain dance.

    If you can't join us Saturday night, you can donate directly: Write "One Billion Rising" on bank transfer.

  • Józan Babák : Magnet Bank 16200216-17085906-000000000
  • JÓL-LÉT Alapítvány : Magnet Bank HU48 16200151-18528549-00000000
  • Magyar Női Érdekérvényesítő Szövetség (Női Érdek) : Unicredit Bank HU32 10918001- 00000019-84720012

  • #riseinsolidarity #1billionrising #womensmarch







    Tuesday, February 14, 2017

    One Billion Rising Budapest 2017

    Happy Valentine’s Day!

    Join us on Feb. 18th! The evening’s program will start with mingling and raffle tickets. We will introduce our three women’s right NGOs. While they will speak briefly in Hungarian, all three speak English as well and look forward to discussing their work with you. Slam poets will perform. And our hosts for the evening at Barrio del tango will present a tango performance. The guest DJ, Sanyi Tilos will run our dance floor. Upstairs will be a NIA dance session. If you haven’t tried it, our awesome instructor will make you fall in love with it. Later in the night the belly dancers will perform for us!

    And what can you win in the raffle? Art! Dance lesson vouchers! The change to commission an original artwork! Autographed books (in English and Hungarian), Wine, and more!

    It’s cold outside. Come to the One Billion Rising Anti-Exploitation Ball and keep the marching energy hot! 


    #1billionrising #womensmarch #sistermarch #riseinsolidarity

    Monday, February 13, 2017

    Meet our Beneficiaries

    The One Billion Rising Budapest 2017 campaign supports three nonprofits working to end the exploitation of women:
    Józan Babák--which helps pregnant women and women with young children become substance abuse free (many of their clients are prostituted women or exited women)
    JÓL-LÉT Alapítvány--which works to support women’s rights in the workplace
    Női Érdek, the Hungarian Women’s Lobby--which strives to build a feminist culture and defend women’s rights

    Representatives from these organizations will be available at the ball to answer further questions.

    https://www.facebook.com/events/465202520270111/



    #Budapest #1billionrising #riseinsolidarity #sistermarch

    Friday, February 10, 2017

    One Billion Rising Budapest Fundraiser

    Dear Friends,
    Please join us February 18th, 2017 for the One Billion Rising Anti-Exploitation Ball: an evening of dance with all proceeds donated to local women’s rights groups. The evening is hosted by Barrio Del Tango, with a guest DJ.
    While Budapest is famous for many things including its nightlife, it is also famous for its exploitative sex industry. The One Billion Rising Budapest 2017 campaign supports three nonprofits working to end the exploitation of women. The first, Józan Babák, helps pregnant women and women with young children become substance abuse free (many of their clients are prostituted women or exited women). The second nonprofit is JÓL-LÉT Alapítvány, which works to support women’s rights in the workplace. And the third is Női Érdek, the Hungarian Women’s Lobby, which strives to build a feminist culture and defend women’s rights. Representatives from these organizations will be available at the ball to answer further questions.
    One Billion Rising Budapest is seeking donations to ensure that these NGOs can continue to carry out their work in Hungary and to help exploited women rebuild their lives. You can donate and dance at the Anti-Exploitation Ball on February 18th, or you can transfer funds directly (even from abroad) to these accounts:
    • Józan Babák: Magnet Bank 16200216-17085906
    • JOL-LET Alapíitvany: Magnet Bank HU48 1620 0151 1852 8549 0000 0000
    • Magyar Női Érdekérvényesítő Szövetség (Női Érdek): Unicredit Bank, Hungary HU32 1091 8001 0000 0019 8472 0012
    Please note “One Billion Rising” on transfer.
    With thanks,
    Janet Kelley, One Billion Rising Organizer and Hungarian Women’s Lobby Volunteer
    For more information about One Billion Rising, a global campaign to stop violence against women: http://www.onebillionrising.org/
    One Billion Rising Anti-Exploitation Ball:
    February 18th, 2017. 8 pm – 12 am
    Barrio Del Tango
    1053 Budapest, Irányi utca 18-20
    No formal dress required! Come dressed to dance!
    Entrance to the party is free. Cash bar.

    Thursday, February 02, 2017

    Winter Sundays



    THOSE WINTER SUNDAYS
    Robert Hayden, 1913 - 1980


    Sundays too my father got up early
    and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold, 
    then with cracked hands that ached 
    from labor in the weekday weather made 
    banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him. 

    I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking. 
    When the rooms were warm, he’d call, 
    and slowly I would rise and dress, 
    fearing the chronic angers of that house, 

    Speaking indifferently to him, 
    who had driven out the cold 
    and polished my good shoes as well. 
    What did I know, what did I know 
    of love’s austere and lonely offices?


    Sunday, January 29, 2017

    Women's March on Budapest: Video

    This is the amazing drone video, provided by Greenpeace, that captures our human chain of solidarity formed over the Chain Bridge in Budapest.


    #sistermarch #womensmarch #budapest #bridgesnotwalls #greenpeace

    Thursday, January 26, 2017

    Women's March on Budapest


    Good morning! Thank you for joining us!
    I am Janet Kelley, one of the organizers of this march.
    Recently we’ve heard so much abusive language toward women, immigrants, people of color, and the LGBTQ community that at times even leaving the house is in itself an act of courage.
    The fact that you showed up today to march for Women’s Rights is a tremendous act of bravery. Give yourselves a round of applause!
    Our banner says, Build Bridges not Walls. Why? Because we believe in bridges. Connections. Alliances. Networks. Conversation. Communication. So turn to your neighbor and introduce yourself. Your name, what you do, why you march today…
    As we build bridges today, look out for each other. Give each other space and patience as we cross the bridge.
    We are building bridges. A bridge is a testament to humanity’s intelligence and ability to solve problems. To join what has been divided. Budapest is a city defined by bridges--the Lanchid was the first bridge to join Buda and pest and now the city is defined by many of them.
    As we drop our banner today, we will stand at the center of the bridge. Let us have the courage to work for Women’s Rights from the center of the bridge—putting our stories, our demands, our power, our voices center stage.
    We need to acknowledge that we live in a world with an elected leader emboldened to denigrate and sexually assault women. We cannot stand silent. We cannot close our eyes. We must start today to resist such leadership.
    Some people have criticized this march as futile, or frivolous, or ill-conceived--or all those other words used against women to undermine them when they stand up for their rights. But I know one thing, when my children and grandchildren ask me what it was like when Trump was elected, I can tell them: Women joined forces around the world to say: Our power is real. Our courage is real. And we are watching you.
    We are joined with the Women's March on Washington to send a bold message to the new American government on their first day in office, and to the world, that women's rights are human rights. We stand together, we recognize that to defend the most marginalized among us is to defend all of us.
    There is work to be done. In America. And in Hungary.
    We have asked Kevehazi Kata to speak about Women’s Rights in Hungary. She will speak briefly in Hungarian to let us know more about the situation for women in Hungary.
    (Kata speaks)
    Thank you Kata, and special thanks to Greenpeace for their tremendous support in planning and carrying out this event today. And a special thanks to the police who willingly cooperated with us to provide us our route.
    Mostanában olyan sok sértő és megbélyegző dolgot hallhattunk nőkről, bevándorlókról és menekültekről, kisebbségekről, az LMBTQIA közösségről, hogy ha kilépsz otthonról, már önmagában az is bátorságra vall. Az, hogy ma itt vagy és felvonulsz a nők jogaiért hatalmas bizonyítéka a bátorságodnak. Tapsoljuk meg magunkat!
    A jelmondatunk: „Falak helyett hidakat!” Hogy miért? Mert hiszünk a hidakban. Kapcsolatok. Szövetségek. Hálózatok. Párbeszéd. Kommunikáció. Fordulj oda a szomszédodhoz és mutatkozz be neki! Mondd el a nevedet, hogy mit csinálsz, hogymiért menetelsz ma.
    Mivel ma hidakat építünk, figyeljünk egymásra, amíg átkelünk a hídon. Adjunk helyeés legyünk türelmesek egymással.
    Hidakat építünk. A híd az emberiség intelligenciájának szimbóluma. Annak, hogy képesek vagyunk problémákat megoldani. Összekötni azt, ami korábban külön volt.
    Budapest meghatározó elemei a hidak. A Lánchíd volt az első híd, ami összekötötte Budát és Pestet és mostanra a várost ezek a hidak határozzák meg.
    Amikor ma kifüggesztjük a transzparensünket, a híd közepén fogunk állni. Hadd vegyük a bátorságot ahhoz, hogy a nők jogaiért a híd közepéről dolgozzunk – hadd legyenek a történeteink, a követeléseink, az erőnk, a hangunk a színpad közepén.
    Fel kell ismernünk, hogy hol tartunk ma. Egy olyan világban élünk, ahol egy választott vezető arra bátorít, hogy rossz hírbe hozzunk és szexuálisan bántalmazzunk nőket. Nem maradhatunk csendben! Nem csukhatjuk be a szemünket! Még ma el kell kezdenünk szembeszegülni az ilyen irányítással.
    Néhányan bírálták ezt a felvonulást azzal, hogy hiábavaló vagy haszontalan vagy rosszul van megtervezve vagy bármilyen más kifejezéssel, amit azért használnak a nők ellen, hogy ellehetetlenítsék a helyzetüket, amikor kiállnak a jogaikért.
    De egy dolgot tudok: amikor a gyerekeim és az unokáim megkérdeznek, hogy milyen volt, amikor Trumpot megválasztották, azt mondhatom nekik: a nők világszerte egyesítették erőiket, hogy azt mondhassák: Az erőnk valódi. A bátorságunk valódi. És figyelünk téged.
    Csatlakozunk a washingtoni Nők Felvonulásához, hogy Trump elnökké avatásának másnapján üzenetet küldjünk az új amerikai vezetésnek és a világnak, hogy a nők jogai emberi jogok. Kiállunk egymásért, mert rájöttünk, hogyha megvédjük a leginkább kitaszítottakat, akkor mindannyiunkat megvédjük.
    Sok munkánk van Amerikában és Magyarországon is.
    Megkértük Keveházi Katát, hogy beszéljen a nők jogainak helyzetéről Magyarországon. Ő fog szólni arról, hogy mit tehetünk a
    nők jogaiért itt, Magyarországon.
    Köszönjük neked, Kata és külön köszönjük a Greenpeace-nek a hatalmas segítséget a mai esemény szervezésében és lebonyolításában. És köszönjük a rendőrségnek, aki készségesen együttműködött velünk és biztosította az útvonalunkat.
    Keveházi Kata vagyok. 17. éve dolgozom a nőkért, és van 3 lányom. Büszke vagyok rá, hogy itt lehetek, és résztvevője lehetek ennek a napnak.
    Ez egy történelmi nap. Mától a világ leggazdagabb és legbefolyásosabb országának vezetője egy olyan
    férfi, aki megtestesíti mindazt, amitől ez a világ, amelyben élünk, romlott, veszélyes, és fájdalmakkal teli: a férfiuralom erőszakosságát, gátlástalanságát, agresszióját és fölényességét.
    Legyünk bátrak kimondani, hisz tudjuk: a háborúk, a szegénység, az éhezés, a környezetrombolás, a migráció, mind a patriarchális hatalmi célok, hataloméhes férfiak végzetes, százmilliók pusztulásával járó játékának következményei.
    Az erőforrásokért, pénzért vívott véres vagy vértelen ütközetek leginkább kiszolgáltatott áldozatai a nők és lánygyermekek. A nők elleni erőszak jól bevált tömegpusztító fegyvere minden háborúnak, a zaklatás a munkahelyi kultúra és a mindennapok része, a verbális, sőt a fizikai bántalmazás sokak családjában az élet természetes velejárója.
    A mai nap történelmi nap, hiszen világszerte nők tömegei menetelnek, hogy megmutassák a nők erejét.
    Igen, nagy utat tettünk meg, mi feministák, és a nők egyenlőségét támogató férfiak az elmúlt 100-150 évben.
    A nők tanulhatnak, fizetett munkát végezhetnek, választhatnak és választhatók, javakat birtokolhatnak, saját akaratukból házasodhatnak és válhatnak el, dönthetnek arról, mikor és kitől
    szeretnének gyermeket vállalni. Már ott, ahol. Mert vannak országok, társadalmi csoportok, ahol ez korántsem evidens.
    Sok mindent elértünk, de tudjuk, hogy mindez kevés.
    Garantált jogok ide vagy oda a férfiuralom megszállottjai és gyakorlói (és velük a nekik bólogató nők ) elidegeníthetetlen joguknak tartják, hogy előírják,
    - mit tudunk – többnyire nem eleget, de azt se jól
    - hogy mire vagyunk képesek – na jó, középvezetők esetleg lehetünk,
    - hol a helyünk – otthon, természetesen,
    - mi a feladatunk – a szeretteinkről való gondoskodás - mert magunktól eszünkbe sem jut
    - hogy mennyit érünk – annyit semmi esetre sem, mint egy azonos képzettséggel, tapasztalattal rendelkező férfi,
    - hogy mennyire és mennyiben vagyunk hasznosak a munkahelyen és használhatók az ágyban.
    A többség társadalmi megbecsültségét mind a mai napig az adja, van-e mellette férfi, elég szépek, kedvesek, alkalmazkodók vagyunk-e, szülünk és háztartunk-e rendesen.
    Magyarországon nem sokra becsülik a feminizmust. Kommunista métely, amúgy is posztszocialista örökség, hogy a nők és férfiak egyenlőségét a törvény biztosítja - ez nem is kérdés.
    Hogy romlott a nők helyzete?
    Hogy az idősgondozás, a házi betegápolás gyakorlatilag megszűnt; hogy továbbra sincs elegendő bölcsőde; hogy az egészségügyet már csak a dolgozók tartják életben; hogy a sérült gyermeket nevelő anyák 10% alatti arányban tudnak dolgozni; hogy csökkent az iskolaköteles életkor; hogy Nyíregyházáról nevezik el Amszterdamban a piros lámpás negyed egy részét; hogy nő a női
    hajléktalanok aránya, hogy a legkonzervatívabb muszlim országok szintjén áll a parlamenti képviselők aránya, és hogy 1 árva nő sincs a kormányban? Ugyan.
    Annyira egyenlők vagyunk, hogy nőkérdés más nincs is. Csak családok vannak, az alkotmány által is védetten. Nem érdekes, hogy minden ötödik család egyszülős, ahol 90%-ban a nő a családfenntartó. Hogy a 3 éve alatti gyermekgondozási segély vagy a sérült gyermeküket, hozzátartozójukat gondozó nők által igénybevető ápolási díj összege a létminimum egyharmada. Hogy a gyermekek fele szegénységben él és 50000 7 éven aluli gyermek éhezik. Miközben 4 milliárdért rendezünk be egy várbéli dolgozószobát. Az sem indokolja az Isztambuli Egyezmény ratifikálást, hogy a magyar rendőrség még mindig ott tart, hogy családon belüli erőszak esetén ki sem jön, ha nem folyt még vér. Ha mégis, hát nem történt semmi. Minek ugrál annyit az asszony. A parlamentben is megmondták, hogy „Fogd be a szád, anyukám”!
    Hát mi befogjuk. És gályázunk és gólyázunk.
    A férfiuralom nem lenne a nyakunkon, ha a nők többsége el ne fogadná alárendelt szerepét. Saját és gyermekeik anyagi és biztonsága érdekében alkalmazkodunk a zaklató főnökhöz, a bántalmazó férjhez, hálásak vagyunk a buszsofőrnek, ha vigyorogva mégis kinyitja az ajtót, és megdicséri a külsőnket.
    Csapda ez nőtársaim, hogy a férfiak, az erős férfiak teremtik meg a biztonságunkat, miközben a legfőbb veszélyforrást a világ biztonsága, és hétköznapjaink biztonsága szempontjából éppen az
    arrogáns férfihatalom jelenti, az egyenlőtlenségek növekedése, a hatalom nélküliek elnyomásán és semmibevételén alapuló patriarchális értékrend fennmaradása jelenti.
    A mai nap azért is történelmi nap, mert ma világszerte milliók menetelnek együtt azért, hogy kifejezzék, nem, nem fordulunk vissza! Nem engedünk az eddig elért emberi és szociális jogainkból,
    szolidárisak vagyunk egymással, minden kisebbséggel, a kiszolgáltatottakkal.
    Kedves nőtársaim, elég erősek, okosak, önállóak és felelősségteljesek vagyunk. Ne féljünk a vezető szereptől, ne féljünk az érdekeink és gyermekeink érdekeinek képviseletétől, álljunk ki a jogainkért, a kiszolgáltatottakért, a társadalmi igazságosságért, egymásért és önmagunkért.
    This is a historic day. From today, the leader of the world’s richest and most influential country is a man who represents all that makes this world we live in rotten, dangerous, and full of pain: chauvinistic aggression, scrupulousness, and arrogance.
    Let’s be brave enough to say, since we know it’s true: war, poverty, hunger, environmental destruction, migration are all the result of patriarchal aspiration to power, the result of the games of power-hungry men, destructive games that come with hundreds of millions of casualties.
    The victims of the battles for money and resources, bloody or not, are mostly women and girls.
    Violence against women is an effective weapon of mass destruction in every war, harassment is part of workplace culture and our everyday life, and verbal and physical abuse are natural parts of life in many families.
    It’s a historic day because around the world, masses of women are marching, to show their strength.
    Yes, we’ve come a long way, we feminists and men who support equality, in the past 100-150 years.
    Women can study, earn a wage, vote and be elected, own property, marry and divorce at their own will, and decide if, when, and with whom they have children. In some places. Because there are countries and communities where this is far from the case.
    We’ve achieved a lot, but we know it’s not enough.
    Regardless of actual rights, believers in and practitioners of male dominance (and with them, acquiescent women) feel it is their inalienable right to dictate:
    ● What we know - mostly not enough, and what we do know, we don’t know well
    ● What we’re capable of - okay, we can be middle manages
    ● Our place - at home, naturally
    ● Our job - to care for our loved ones, because we wouldn’t have realized this ourselves
    ● Our worth - in any case not as much as a man with the same education and experience
    ● How useful we are at work and in bed
    The respect of the majority in our society remains determined by whether a woman has a husband or boyfriend, is pretty enough, nice enough, accommodating enough, and whether she bears children and keeps a household well.
    In Hungary, feminism is not valued. It’s a communist fluke, a post-socialist inheritance that equality between the sexes is enshrined in law - there’s no question about it.
    Has the situation of women deteriorated?
    Perhaps because care for senior citizens and homebound patients has disappeared? Because
    there are still not enough nursery schools? Because only the hard-working staff keep our health care system alive? Because only 10% of women with disabled children are able to work.
    Because the required school-leaving age has been lowered? Because in Amsterdam, part of the red-light district is named after Nyiregyhaza? Because the percentage of women in the homeless population is rising? Because the ratio of female MPs approaches that of the most conservative of muslim countries? Because there isn’t a single woman in the cabinet?
    No. We’re so equal, there’s no question about women. There are only families, and those are protected in the constitution.
    It doesn’t matter that every fifth family is a single-parent one, of which 90% have a woman as the sole breadwinner. That the amount of support for women raising a child under three, caring
    for a disabled child, or caring for a family member is one-third of the subsistence level. That half of the children in our country live in poverty and 50,000 children under the age of 7 are hungry,
    and that the children of parents struggling to make ends meet are taken away.
    In the midst of all this, we furnish an office in the Castle District for 4 billion forints ($14 million). And the ratification of the Istanbul Convention doesn’t influence the fact that the Hungarian
    police still does not come to the scene when cases of domestic violence are reported, if blood is not flowing. If they do, well, nothing much happened. What’s the woman going on about? In parliament they’ve said, “Close your mouth, woman!”
    We do close our mouths. We put up with it.
    Male dominance would not be burdening us today if the majority of women didn’t accept their subordinate status. We put up with our abusive bosses and husbands, we’re grateful to the bus driver if he decides to open the door, and compliments us on our looks – all in the interest of our own and our children’s safety and well-being.
    This is a trap, my fellow females. It’s a trap to think that strong men provide our security, while the main threat to the security of the world and of our daily lives is that arrogant male dominance, which leads to the rise of inequality, and the perpetuation of a patriarchal value system based on the oppression of the powerless.
    It’s a historic day also because around the world, millions are marching together today to say "No, we’re not turning back! We’re not giving up any of our hard-won human and social rights. We’re in solidarity with each other and every minority, every oppressed group.”
    My dear women, we are strong enough, smart enough, independent enough, and responsible enough. Let’s not be afraid to be leaders. Let’s not be afraid to represent our interests and those of our children. Let’s stand up for our rights, for the oppressed, for social justice, for each other, and for ourselves.

    Sunday, January 08, 2017

    Does my haughtiness offend you? Still I Rise

    Still I Rise


    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.
    
    
    https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/still-i-rise

    Friday, January 06, 2017

    "So what moved him to not-say I-love-you?"



    'I Love You'

    Related Poem Content Details

    for Geraldine Monk
    'I love you,' he wouldn't say: it was against his philosophy; I-love-you
    didn't mean what it meant, plus the verray construction of the phrase
    caused bad-old-concrete-lawman-vandal-verbal-mildew-upon-the-grape-
    harvest-and-war-for-rare-minerals-required-to-manufacture-commu-
    nications-devices damage; saying I-love-you damaged love, subject and
    object; plus he could prove this in two dense and delphic languages
    suitable for philosophy, opera, cursing, and racking the nerves of arti-
    ficial intelligence machines that perhaps could love but would be
    hard-wired giammai to dare say so. So what moved him to not-say
    I-love-you? What wake-up-and-spoil-the-coffee ashtray-licking djinn? I
    have to start to agree. The verbness of it impropriety (eyes glob up the
    syringe when you're giving blood: semisolid spiralling); perhaps too
    active... I-love-you, I sand you, I drill you, I honey and set you for wasps,
    crimson you like a stolen toga, add value applying dye, fight owner-
    ship, I cite you to justify skilled outrage, put your name as guarantor
    on an astronomical mortgage, I admit desertification comes as a relief,
    from I to O, O my oasis, O my mirage. Maybe the verb is a tending-to-
    wards? A tightrope? A tropism? A station? But that's meeting him on
    his own ground; plus I can't disprove entire languages; plus those
    three little words aren't meant as saying. An icy drink in stormlight. A
    looked-at leaf left to transpire its own way until... And sans I-love-you
    the centuried moon rose above dinnermint stone; many men contin-
    ued  talking; a woman lifted her sarsenet skirt, peed on green lilies and,
    utterly gracious, walked through the archway to join the mixed group
    delighting in — word! believe it! — fresh air.
    Vahni Capildeo, "‘I Love You’" from Measures of Expatriation. Copyright © 2016 by Vahni Capildeo. Reprinted by permission of Carcanet Press, Ltd..
    Source: Measures of Expatriation (Carcanet Press, Ltd., 2016)



    https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/91724

    Wednesday, January 04, 2017

    In the Dark Room by Susan Faludi

    PREFACE

    FIRST LINE:


    In the summer of 2004 I set out to investigate someone I scarcely knew, my father.

    TWO

    "Haaallo?" my father said, with the protracted enunciation I'd heard so infrequently in recent years, that Magyar cadence that seemed to border on camp. Hallo. As my father liked to note, that telephone salutation was the coinage of Thomas Edison's assistant, Tivadar Puskás, the inventor of the phone exchange, who, as it happened, was Hungarian. "Hallom!" Puskás had shouted when he first picked up the receiver in 1877, Magyar for "I hear you!" Would she?

    FIVE

    My sense of who I am, to the degree that I can locate its coordinates, seems to derive from a quality of resistance, a refusal to back down. If it's threatened, I'll assert it. My "identity" has quickened in those very places where it has been most under siege.

    TWELVE

    In March 1939, more than two years before Hungary even entered the war, the Hungarian government declared Jewish men unfit for military action. . . . Instead, the Hungarian Labor Service System, unique to Hungary, conscripted all male Jews between the ages of twenty and forty-eight (and later, eighteen and forty-eight) into forced work units. . . . Conscripts were deprived of army boots and uniforms (other than yellow armbands identifying them as Jews; white for Jews who were Christian coverts). . . .these men provided the slave labor. . . .marched ahead of the regular troops through mine fields. . . .the laborers died in epidemic numbers, forty-two thousand before the German occupation.

    Jewish men, no matter how convincing their false identity papers, risked what was euphemistically known as "trouser inspection" every time they ventured out.

    THIRTEEN

    I thought often of Nobel laureate Imre Kertész's assessment of his former home: "Nothing has been worked through, everything is painted over with pretty colors. Budapest is a city without a memory."

    In 2003, Hungarian legislators, intent on making their country one of the first post-Communist bloc nations to join the EU, hurried into law the Equal Treatment Act. . . . And, remarkably, "gender identity," which two human-rights NGOs managed to slip into the the legislation. Hungary became the first nation in the world to guarantee equal protection to transgender people. 
          On paper. On the street, any urge to celebrate Hungary's declared tolerance was undercut by fear.

    FOURTEEN

    With Trianon, Hungary shed not only landmass but ethnic diversity. A vast portion of the country's minorities--those restive Romanians, Slovaks, Croatians, Ruthenians, Slovenians--now belonged to other nations carved from its borders. . . .With the exception of ethnic Germans, strongly assimilated yet in their own way outliers, the populace had gone from a roiling rainbow quilt to black and white: Magyar and Jew. One way to read the collapse of the Golden Age--it's what happens when a fluid system becomes binary. Magyars now represented 90 percent of the population. There were no longer the only slightly-less-than-half demographic who needed the Jews to be Magyars in order to construct their majority. The Jews of Hungary now served another purpose, as scapegoats for the "amputation" of the nation, the "mutilated motherland."

    I can't bear to type some of the passages I have underlined. This chapter is extremely powerful and important for readers.

    FIFTEEN

    "The power of editing!" she said. "Waaall, I have to edit everything I do."

    TWENTY

    "Identity is" -- she deliberated--"it's what society accepts for you. You have to behave in a way that people accept, otherwise you have enemies. That's what I do--and I have no problems." 

    TWENTY-FIVE

    I studied my father's face, averted as it so often had been in life. All the years she was alive, she'd sought to settle the question of who she was. Jew or Christian? Hungarian or American? Woman or man? So many oppositions. But as I gazed upon her still body, I thought: there is in the universe only one true divide, one real binary, life and death. Either you are living or you are not. Everything else is molten, malleable.






    Tuesday, January 03, 2017

    Nutshell by Ian McEwan


    EPIGRAPH

    Oh God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space--were it not that I have bad dreams.   Shakespeare, Hamlet


    FIRST LINE

    So here I am, upside down in a woman.


    ONE

    Let me summon it, that moment of creation that arrived with my first concept. Long ago, many weeks ago, my neural groove closed upon itself to become my spine and my many million young neurons, busy as silkworms, spun and wove from their trailing axons the gorgeous golden fabric of my first idea, a notion so simple it partly eludes me now. Was it me? Too self-loving. Was it now? Overly dramatic. Then something antecedent to both, containing both, a single word mediated by a mental sigh or swoon of acceptance, of pure being, something like--this? Too precious. So, getting closer, my idea was To be. Or if not that, its grammatical variant, is. This was my aboriginal notion and here's the crux--is. Just that. In the spirit of Ex muss sein. The beginning of conscious life was the end of illusion, the illusion of non-being, and the eruption of the real.

    TWO

    Instead, he hopes to succeed by kindness and self-effacing sensitivity to her needs. I hope to be wrong, but I think he'll doubly fail, for she'll go on despising him for being weak, and he'll suffer even more than he should.

    THREE

    We'll always be troubled by how things are--that's how it stands with the difficult gift of consciousness.

    FOUR

    But here's life's most limiting truth--it's always now, always here, never then and there.

    FIVE

    Adversity forced awareness on us, and it works, it bites us when we go too near the fire, when we love too hard. Those felt sensations are the beginning of the invention of the self.

    God said, Let there be pain. And there was poetry. Eventually.

    SIX

    "Seizing the law into your own hands--it's old hat, reserved for elderly feuding Albanians and subsections of tribal Islam. Revenge is dead. Hobbes was right, my young friend. The state must have a monopoly of violence, a common power to keep us all in awe."

    Words, as I am beginning to appreciate, can make things true.

    SEVEN

    Only satisfied desire could have freed him.

    Each of us, from each different point of view, is gripped by what's not being said.

    EIGHT

    But it won't end, the bad will be endless, until ending badly will seem a blessing.

    NINE

    The man who obliterates my mother between the sheets obeys like a dog. Sex, I begin to understand, is its own mountain kingdom, secret and intact. In the valley below we know only rumors.

    TEN

    A toast to love and therefore to death, to Eros and Thanatos. It appears to be a given of intellectual life, that when two notions are sufficiently far apart or opposed, they are said to be profoundly linked. Since death is opposed to everything in life, various couplings are proposed. Art and death. Nature and death. Worryingly, birth and death. And joyously iterated, love and death. On this last and from where I am, no two notions could be more mutually irrelevant. The dead love no one, nothing. As soon as I am out and about I might try my hand at a monograph. The world cries out for fresh-faced empiricists.

    TWELVE

    However close you get to others, you can never get inside of them, even when you're inside of them.

    But it's hard to be separate from her when I need her. And with such churning of emotion, need translates to love, like milk to butter.

    THIRTEEN

    Lovers arrive at their first kisses with scars as well as longings. They're not always looking for advantage. Some need shelter, others press only for the hyperreality of ecstasy, for which they'll tell outrageous lies or make irrational sacrifice. But they rarely ask themselves what they need or want. Memories are poor for past failures. Childhoods shine through adult skin, helpfully or not. So do the laws of inheritance that bind a personality. The lovers don't know there's no free will.

    FOURTEEN

    a wonderful passage on revenge, which you need to read in context.

    FIFTEEN

    No one exclaims at the moment of one's dazzling coming-out, It's a person! Instead: It's a girl, It's a boy. Pink or blue--a minimal improvement of Henry Ford's offer of cars of any color so long as they were black. Only two sexes. I was disappointed. If human bodies, minds, fates are so complex, if we are free like no other mammal, why limit the range?

    A strange mood has seized the almost-educated young. They're on the march, angry at times, but mostly needful, longing for authority's blessing, its validation of their chosen identities.

    I'll feel, therefore I'll be.

    Feeling is queen. Unless she identifies as king.

    EIGHTEEN

    She's memorising her memories.

    NINETEEN

    A voice on the radio once told me that when we fully understand what matter is we'll feel better. I doubt that. I'll never get what I want.

    LAST LINES

    And I'm thinking about our prison cell--I hope it's not too small--and beyond its heavy door, worn steps ascending: first sorrow, then justice, then meaning. The rest is chaos.