Rosemarie Dombrowski, the inaugural Poet Laureate of Phoenix, AZ, wrote and read this poem at the opening reception of the In Celebration of Women II exhibit.
How the Women Rally by Rosemarie Dombrowski
We need a revolution of the mind,
sacred rights for the oppressed,
the eradication of generations of marginalization
of woman by man and woman by woman.
Every generation, the women rally before they march.
We are muscle and plow,
all of us reaped from a woman’s body.
Give us a chance to set the world right again,
to raise ourselves and our children from the dead.
Every generation, the women rally before they march.
Some women lick their fingers and taste the rage,
like salt from the lips of a woman
who has never had a room
in which she could take shape.
Every generation, the women rally before they march.
It is necessary to maintain a state of disobedience,
to rebel against the dominant social forces
before they assault our essence.
Every generation, the women rally before they march.
Once, the world as perfect, but we destroyed it,
and we were unfinished again—
huddled masses of light,
wondering which version of us would survive the darkness.
Every generation, the women rally before they march,
and we celebrate the wealth of their collective power.
Note on the poem: This poem was inspired by the ongoing, intergenerational, intersectional struggle for equality, and more specifically, by the writings of first-generation suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the Black suffragist Sojourner Truth, second wave Black feminist poet Audre Lorde, third wave feminist poet Alice Notley, and the first indigenous Poet Laureate of the U.S., Joy Harjo.
