The Backstory – “An Attempt at Feminism”
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: I’m three to four months into the legal drinking age, and feel so deeply betrayed by the intensity of my sexual impulses that I contemplate suicide. The guy I tell myself I like has been driving me around in his mom’s minivan since the fall term, explaining how badly he wants to live on a root-vegetable farm in Idaho and why it’s not the right time for me to meet his friends, who are all married with one on the way. I suspect he’s a cult-member, and that if I play my cards right, he’ll be asking me to change my name to Martha Marcy May Marlene before another year’s end. I won’t put it past myself to be strangely flattered. And I won’t be changing my name. But for now, I’m attracted to his scraggly ginger beard and the faux-flannel shirts he wears to go hiking along the Chattooga River (without me, but on my recommendation).
When we kiss—often inside the minivan—he stares me down and fitfully bites my lower lip. I’m prone to laughing in the middle of it, which hurts his feelings. The quavering apology I’m obliged to deliver is getting to me: I wasn’t trying to pull away! Honest! I thought I tasted blood for a split second. I announce to my young nephew that I’m dating the shark from Finding Nemo, and despite the aggressive exuberance in my voice and his child-apathy, we can both hear how wrong it sounds.
I write “An Attempt at Feminism” at two o’clock in the morning, following my inaugural gig as the host of trivia for Clemson’s literary festival. The boyfriend didn’t make it out because of a vague permaculture disaster over at the Student Organic Farm, something to do with an old tractor leaking coolant on the crops. That I can’t muster one sensation of having missed him, or even the smallest faith in his story is no revelation for me. He’s wooden and weird, a composite of hip social media presences, the sort of person who takes selfies in front of greenhouses but hasn’t a word for food justice. He says that Langston Hughes is lost on him. And I’m selfish and deprived and hormonal. I know that I am.
The poem below is the result of a highly specific anger I harnessed for a few lines. I am proud that something good came out of it all. Older and wiser women than me have put up with far worse. Honestly, wherever he is and whoever’s lip he’s chomping on now, I just want him to be happy. And every day I’m thrilled it’s not me responsible for his happiness.
(Graphic by Martine Ehrhart)
An Attempt at Feminism, By Miriam McEwen
I misplaced my womanhood in a passage of blood
and whatever passes for glory in those parts:
Suppress that nature thing some girls learn to nurture after
they read a Brontë
because the taste of anesthesia clings to my tongue
in times of famine,
Feel the sexlessness of my age biting through the urges
I was supposed to have
by now stop now start now go now wait a minute come back stay back,
Stammer on Andy Johnny Jenny; androgyny is almost, but not really?
Watch your mouth, you-
and me sittin’ in a tree reading Abraham Lincoln’s speeches
in the event our house divides in the middle of the night and we
decide to come undone.
You can stop pushing so hard now.
I think she might be done now.
By Miriam McEwen
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Read other writings by Miriam:
Broke Down Morning – A Short Story
The Young Women’s Guide to Making Bad Matters Worse
You know, I’ve realized more and more that I like the prose that poets write about their poetry far more than I like their poetry. Oh man, the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poets in particular. Ever read them, Miriam? Charles Bernstein? Ron Silliman (I think that’s his name, or maybe I just think he’s a silly man)? Clark Coolidge? Their poetry; can’t stand it. Can’t even begin to read it and don’t understand why anyone ever did. But then you read what they have to say about poetry, and you’re thankful that they’re “poets” if only to provide them with the opportunity to write about it. Roundaboutwayofsaying, I think I enjoy your poetry and your prose about it in equal measure. Y’know, when you read such a good little piece BEFORE you get to the poem you’re thinking, “oh man, I hope the poem lives up to all this.”
I also have n business saying anything about anyone’s poetry, so you shouldn’t take my grousing about that other poem to heart! I’m still at the “I like/I don’t like” level here. Worse than a college freshman, because I’m old enough to at least TRY to do better. But this I like. I like it from the moment you drop the Brontë, which comes around and re-snarks even the snarkiness of the opening line. You know, “snark” is your thing, isn’t it? Your niche. It fits. You know, the Anglo-Saxons called their poet a “scop” (related to “scoff”) and the Nordic poet was a skáld: a “scold.” Perhaps you could be the first Snark.
I’m struggling to keep balance in this poem; I think in the way intended. One foot on Brontë–one of them–and another on Abraham Lincoln, and from the passage of blood to the passage of the emancipation proclamation. This is quite a tour. There’s a way in which your poems sometimes leave the reader and talk to themselves for a little while (like the Andy Johnny Jenny bit; yay, there’s my name!) There’s something interesting happening over there, I think, says the reader, but I’m not sure what it is.