In my early college days, friends used to come to my house to play trivia, all brainy classmates at the University of Illinois in Urbana, mostly Desi and Arab girlfriends, and mama would effortlessly whoop all our butts. Her smart, sassy attitude and her cooking made me popular (still does). I was sort of a “townie,” but we had just moved there from the deep South, which rendered us quite the anomaly in the Midwest. (Imagine me as a 16-year old Palestinian-American with a country accent…it was remediated rather efficiently.) It was in large part mama’s captivating warmth and charm [Read more]

We asked HER KIND readers to share their first in only 11 words. From stolen feminist manifestos to 3 husbands bearing the same name, we share our favorite 111: 1. “I am eleven when I discover the corner of the couch” – Melissa da Silveira Serpa 2. “Bloodstained crotch at top of the Empire State Building in 1974.” - Karen Nazor 3. “Starbucks parking lot: I trade dirty panties for cash, buy latte.” – Sadie Palomino 4. “First memory: watching my big brother whistle through crib bars.” – Kristin Griffin 5. “She died October eleventh.  I was eleven and never sure [Read more]

Fatty Boom Boom by Die Antwoord: Watch the video here Die Antwoord (Afrikaans for “The Answer”), with vocalist Ninga and Yo-Landi Visser, describe themselves, on their official website as ” a fre$, futuristik, flame-throw-flow-freeking, zef rap-rave krew from da dark dangerous depths of Afrika.“   Rosebud Ben-Oni: Arisa first emailed me back in February to check out this video after she searched for white female rappers and “zed” rappers. I knew almost immediately the female impersonator was a satirical take on Lady Gaga– and then, after watching the video, how Die Antwoord was both critiquing the U.S. model for popular [Read more]

Why did I resurrect Virginia Woolf? I am British. (Working-class roots. Cypriot ancestry.) With this birthright comes an acute sense of class. So every time I hear about Virginia Woolf’s five hundred pounds per year inheritance, which relieved her from the worry and need to find work to keep a roof over her head and put food in her mouth, it pierces my heart a little. I have been teaching creative writing in the U.S. for twenty-two years—seventeen of those years as an adjunct (in addition to a full-time office job), and now with a full-time teaching job that, on [Read more]

When I was younger (middle school, high school), it was my job to mow the lawn. And this is perhaps when I started meditating, though I suppose “meditate” is not the accurate word for this: traversing the yard in steady, concentric circles, shaving down orderly slices of yard and letting my mind wander wherever it wanted—which for a few years meant I thought about god. I did not grow up in a religious family. I can’t, in fact, recall my parents ever mentioning god at home. We went to a Presbyterian church every Sunday I think because my parents enjoyed [Read more]

Listen to: Postcards To The Body Politic_by Margo Berdeshevsky   i But there’s more. First, I cannot write dear. I cannot call you dear. I am too deeply, deeply  — and I have never believed in. Before. But now so much less. No. So much less. Dear illusion of dear. Dear I-could-not-write. You will not mind. You do not love. Dear body. Dear if-my-right-hand. Dear how can you love only your own soul? Dear why would you feed only one eye? Not the hand. Not the belly. How can you love the head, not skin, not the water? You make me [Read more]

Dear Continuum: I got an issue of Poets and Writers in the mail yesterday. I enjoyed what I read but it was not inspiring at all. It was realistic. It was honest about the uphill battle it is to get a book seen. I know the work of this all too well. But this letter is not about books, this is about voice and the love and armor you will need to have yours heard. When I think about being a writer in 2013, being a writer with a Black woman’s voice–(“I am a black woman…and I sound like one.” [Read more]

Ever since Claudia Rankine took Tony Hoagland to task for his seriously questionable poem, “The Change,” I have been arguing with poet friends incessantly about the relative value of that poem. Needless to say, I could write an entire essay on why I think “The Change” is an unsuccessful attempt at addressing the complexity of race in a poem. But I want to discuss a personal experience I had seeing Tony Hoagland read.   I recently attended the Palm Beach Poetry Festival, which is an incredible program that brings some of the best poets in the country to teach workshops, [Read more]

As art critic John Berger writes in Ways of Seeing that seeing and recognition come even before words, and the opposing manner in which men and women are culturally represented is vast. Representations of men and women in visual culture entice different gazes. I believe art illuminates, has the power to alter perspective, and thus society, for the better—even if it starts with one set of eyes. With this photo essay, featuring my work and the work of others, I am working in whatever small way to encourage inventive observation of the female figure and its peaceful significance to human [Read more]