SATURDAY NIGHT JUDY GRAHN POEM 20 NOVEMBER 2010

(Judy Grahn, January 1988, Oakland CA, photo by Robert Giard)

Every Saturday evening I post a Judy Grahn poem. Much of her best work is already up here (check Labels to the right for her name) but there is still a wealth more to share. If she'd been a straight white man, they'd have declared her poet laureate a long time ago -- but then she wouldn't be writing the stunning language that she does.


She Who,
She Who carries herself in a bowl of blood
She Who builds herself a bowl of blood
and swallows a speck of foam
She Who molds her blood in a bowl
in a bowl, in a bowl of blood
and the bowl, and the bowl and the blood
and the foam and the bowl, and the bowl
and the blood belong to She Who holds it.

She shook it till it got some shape.
She shook it the first season and lost some teeth
She shook it the second season and lost some bone
She shook it the third season and some body was born,
She Who


© Judy Grahn, from The Work Of A Common Woman