This poetry collection, edited by Daniella Barnhart and Iris Mahan, opens with Denice Frohman’s poem ’a woman’s place’, and the first lines set the scene for the whole collection:
i heard a woman becomes herself
the first time she speaks
without permissionthen, every word out of her mouth
a riot
The collection is huge in scope and has all in all 67 poems from 49 different contributors. This is the main strength of Women of Resistance: it collects together a large cast of diverse voices that all share something about their daily experiences. The collection includes poems by LGBTQ+ authors and writers of colour. The topics covered by the poems range from politics to personal, intimate moments, and the authors talk about sexism, racism, history, motherhood, and marriage, to name just a few. Although the poems differ from each other vastly in style and subject matter, they still form a unified whole. Each poem points out something that is wrong with our world, something that needs to change. As the backgrounds and life experiences of the poets are all different, what they pick up on and what they see in their lives are also different. When read side by side, the poems give you an in-depth look into what it means to exist in the margins of society.
Although the topics the poems cover are bleak, there is an overall feeling of hope, of resistance. It makes you feel connected, and it helps you believe that things can change. The collection reminds you that there is a lot of power in unity. That said, some of the poems can be painful to read, especially the ones that deal with assault and childhood sexual abuse. Therefore I would recommend this collection with a trigger warning for sexual violence.
The collection is split into four untitled sections, and to be honest I didn’t really understand what the connection between the poems in each section is. It’s very possible that I just missed it because I was focusing more on taking in each individual poem and didn’t actively look for overarching themes. However, what I did really like about the way the collection is laid out is that multiple poems by the same author are presented together one after another. It was nice to get a feel for each poet’s style and voice by reading multiple poems by them in a row. I had not heard of any of the poets who contributed to this collection before reading it, and it has definitely introduced me to some new favourites.
I think I found this collection so powerful partly because it is a collection of poetry, and it is difficult for me to imagine that a short story or an essay collection would be quite as effective. Poetry is special in the way it can make abstract concepts tangible and personal experiences universal. It also allows you to take in a lot of information and emotion in a short amount of time without exhausting you to the bone. I think that makes this collection more accessible than many other books on feminism, and I like the idea that the voice of a new feminism is poetry by a genuinely diverse mix of writers.
