Foreword
This is a piece where I was working out my emotions in the only way that I know how: on the page. It is not something I would normally share, however, it occurred to me in the process of writing it that this is perhaps a helpful (if terrifying) thing to put on this page. We live in a political landscape that has made home for itself on the internet. Ideas spread like wildfire. For all the people who have read misogynistic ideas over the last few days I hope this piece acts as a karmic balance of sorts.
There are a lot of very interesting articles that have also filled the internet in the last few days. Some of them are informative and others are hopeful. I have linked two below.
A grief, an anger, a poem
I wrote a post on this platform in the summer about ‘our summers of multifaceted femininity’. I wrote it on a train that was hurtling through the countryside of England. It was sunny and the world outside the window was so green. It was a piece of work I am proud of - for its content and partially for its reception. It reminded me of the power that I have - being able to reach out to both friends and family and others who I don’t know on this platform. It was a slice of joy and genuine surprise that there could be space for fun in American politics. It was a piece of writing from a young woman who was in awe of the way that women could gather together to create communities where those who feel as though they are on the outskirts can find a home.
In the wake of the result of the US election I have found myself grieving for the optimism that I held as I sat writing on that train. I am scared for women around the world who will be impacted by this election. I am scared for the rights of people who wish to marry the people that they love regardless of their gender, race or identity. Regardless of who in the population voted for whom and why they did so it is unmistakably true that the repercussions of this election will affect people all over the world.
This is a tweet made by right wing podcaster Nicholas Fuentes in the wake of the election. It plays off a sentiment that emerged amongst the 4B group in 2014.
Here in the UK where the right to choose is not currently under threat but where the strength of the right wing voice is only growing I find myself afraid of who might feel like it is “my body their choice.”
I have turned to literature … have tried both feminist literature and escapist literature set in worlds where the monsters take the form of fire breathing dragons rather than men in suits. One is too intellectual, the other too abstract. I cannot throw a dagger at the amorphous ideology that threatens a right to make decisions about my own mind and body (to be completely honest I can’t throw a dagger full stop.)
These books however have at least made me think. I come from a place of enormous privilege simply by living in a place where the right to make these decisions about my mind and body remains as my own. That is not true for women and girls across the world. And still I have been attacked near my house. Women in this country do not feel safe. This evening I was planning on going for a run but since the clocks have gone back I don’t feel as though it is safe for me to exercise after it gets dark. A friend and I were talking on Friday night and have decided to go to a self defense class together because we don’t feel safe walking home at night in the dark.
I am afraid and confused and it makes me wonder how can you fight what you don’t truly understand?
Eventually I have returned to the only thing that ever helps me to make sense of what I do not understand because it is emotive rather than logical and can be interpreted exactly as it needs to be: poetry.
I write this on Remembrance Sunday curled up safe and warm and at home. This helps to put my fear and anxiety into perspective perhaps. To think of what has happened in the past and the people who have given their lives for a cause that they believe in. We are at war but at least it is a metaphorical and ideological one. If there is any way to combat this fear and to respond to hatred it must surely be to not go gently. If you must take the freedoms of citizens away may we all rage, rage against the dying of the light.
The arts are not a change maker in the world - any artist who tells you otherwise is a liar - art is a different sort of power. It is a transformer, it is an emotive conduit, it is a truth teller. The emotions that it stirs can be used to drive people and make change but art itself is only a reflection. I was optimistic and now I am angry and may the art that I love and that I am driven to make be reflective of this change.
On that note, in a time of fear and anger this is the poem that has soothed my soul and offered some strength:
Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Resources and copyright information:
Nick Fuentes and the 4B movement: ‘Your body, my choice. Forever.’
Dylan Thomas poem: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46569/do-not-go-gentle-into-that-good-night
Copyright Credit: Dylan Thomas, “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night” from The Poems of Dylan Thomas. Copyright 1939, 1946 by New Directions Publishing Corporation. Reprinted with the permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation.
Source: The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas (New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1957)
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