Girls on the Edge
What are our girls around the world on ‘the edge’ of?: Extinction? Womanhood? More choices? More restriction? Are they on the edge of craziness, or the edge of adulthood? The Boston WUNRN Workshop wanted to know, and the Girls on the Edge project came into being, under the direction of ANTS Artist-in-Residence Carole Fontaine, and Worship, Theology and the Arts (WOTA) MA student Jennifer Thompson.
Girls on the Edge is about becoming a woman in a world that sends messages about what that means, messages which are contrary to most traditional faith-based values. The media has an unprecedented control over our lives in the 21st century, and it is killing our young women. Being a spiritual person does not shield us from this monster of a culture that undermines our value at every step of growth. All of the art & poetry are expressions of the feelings of young women (and men!) that are in the midst of this war.
The 9th grade girls’ art class at Boston Trinity Academy prepared collages that compared descriptions of womanhood in Proverbs 31 to images of women in the media. These girls are primarily from minority groups and live in the city. We talked about expectations and pressures regarding looks, body image, all while trying to be a good Christian.
The poetry comes from students at Holy Temple, BTA, and the Faith Youth Institute at Andover Newton Theological school. Aine M. and Aubrey E. are both very talented poets from FYI Summer 2005, whose work reflects the struggles that face young women today. They reflect the desire to become strong spiritually, even while being bombarded with images from the media.
Clothesline in the Meetinghouse for Opening Reception of Boston WUNRN Workshop
The installation done by Jennifer Thompson is a laundry line that ‘hangs out’ some of the major crises facing women all around the world: AIDS, rape, child trafficking, cancer, eating disorders, fear of aging, body images, reproductive choices, etc. Each piece of clothing came from Thompson’s own family, and the symbols are personal to that family as well as to the women around the world. It evokes the art method of the ‘Project Clothesline’ in Worcester, MA, which displays art by women survivors of sexual abuse.
Jen’s collage of Esther in the Miss Persian Contest in WOTA 613, Dangerous Little Books: Ruth, Esther, Song of Songs
Jennifer Thompson is a second-year a masters degree candidate at Andover Newton Theological School in Worship, Theology and the Arts. She currently teaches art at Boston Trinity Academy among a very diverse body of students. Originally studying fashion design at Drexel University, she now has a B.F.A. in Art & Art History & a Post- Baccalaureate degree in Art Education from Moore College of Art & Design in Philadelphia, one of the countries only all women’s art schools. A Delaware native, she plans to continue working in art education, women’s studies, and art history. Believing that the arts are a powerful vehicle for worship, education, and reform, Jen hope to use her gifts to glorify God and serve others through the arts. She is the key coordinator of art and poetry by Girls on the Edge. Her email is: jenbeatricet@aol.com
Poetry by Girls (and others) on the Edge
On the Brink of Something Beautiful
Everything inside me is waiting
To take off
Like
I’ve gathered up all my loose feathers and I’m perched
On the brink of something beautiful
I am understood only by the stars
Who burn and yearn
To Fall
So we may wish beneath them
I wish for wings
And receive whispers
Beckoning
From my radiant sisters
Inspiring the dreams before my dreams
Pulling me into
White, silent space where possibility dwells in the
Moonlight illuminating my bed sheet
Like the blank page
Like the open sky where
I dare
To fold my wings easily like a paper crane
And suddenly,
Forget to obey gravity
Forget all the endings I wrote on every story and just
Begin and Begin and remember
Feathers falling from a blue heaven decorate my dreams
They surrender to the wind
Swirling down on the earth like snowflakes
Changing the color of the world
To birth it anew into the day
The world is fresh when I awake
The page has been turned
And my pen is poised for flight
A sound rises within me…
My whole soul sings with every song that speaks of wings
And everything inside me is
Underneath this suffocating ceiling
Staring through the skylight
Wondering,
What am I doing here?
What am I waiting for?
By Aine McCarthy
LOVE
Love is a quality you can give and receive
Love is a quality you should never leave
Love is a quality everyone should share
Love is a quality you shouldn’t have to spare
Listen everyone; you should never put the lid on love
You should never bid on love
Love will come and go
Love is a gift that regulates on high and low.
Leah Nesbitt
Age 12
Holy Temple Church
NOTHING
Nothing in this world
can keep me from loving.
Nothing in this world
is as strong as hatred
Nothing in this world
can make me hate
Nothing in this world
can’t feed me
Nothing in this world
Can heal HIV or AIDS
Nothing in this world
Should make you a racist
Or a sexist person
Nothing in this world
should make you disrespect
others’ opinion
As they value yours
Nothing in this world
Got nothing on this poem
Derek Thompson Jr.
Age 15
Holy Temple Church
Bio poem: My mom
Karen
Serious, protective, intelligent, comforting
Mother of Aliyah
Lover of koala bears, puffins, purple
Who feels opportune, motherly, authoritative?
Who needs affection, appreciation, her daughter
Who fears bats, sad endling, roaches
Who gives advice, warmth, allowance
Who would like to see Aliyah be successful
The rapture, her mom again
Resident of Jamaica Plain
Harris
Aliyah R. Harris
Age 11 ½
Boston Trinity Academy
Black Cherry
He said, “here kitty, kitty,” and brought her to his lap.
She was only a kitten.
His face was familiar, his stroke was not.
Black Cherry
Too much, too cold.
Bitter crystals she was forced to eat,
Freezer burnt cream.
Are all black cats witches in disguise?
Maybe we should hang them all on trees,
Then maybe they’ll stop wailing.
Do not pet her, ignore her eyes.
She doesn’t need your touch,
Her wall is breaking,
Let her rest.
His grip is weakened,
Weeping in the graveyard,
Now alone,
Never to pet again.
Jennifer Thompson
Andover Newton Theological School
Art Class: Hopes and Fears
I fear the death of a family member.
I am going to draw a person then
Another person shooting that person
And it will be a kid, being shot.
I hope that I will become a famous
Basketball player, to explain my
Hope, I am going to draw myself
In front of cameras with a jersey
Naming a WNBA team and a news
Reporter giving me an interview
Melissa Coppin
Age 14
Boston Trinity Academy
Poem
She longed to be free
Just to fly away
At the water where
She washed her
Darkness away
Faylis Matos, Age 14.
I am
I am misunderstood
I wonder about the “what ifs”
I see beauty in everything
I want to be wanted
I am misunderstood
I fear being alone and death
I hate hating
I worry about my peers and my
Surroundings
I love to be loved
I am misunderstood
I understand that love is a risk
I believe in God
I dream with high expectations
I try to achieve
I hope my reams come true
I am misunderstood
Derek Thompson Jr.
Age 15
Holy Temple Church
In the Beginning
In the beginning
When life flows in fluid patters
Of darkness
The dance of sustenance
Breathes,
And I am released,
Imprinted with the rhythm of the womb
Light and shadows play,
Immersing me in colors
Which bend into waves of sounds,
While fingers of gravity pull
Against my bones.
I expand.
And in vastness I hear my name.
Sighing, I know that it is good.
In solitude I am becoming.
The sea of reality splashes
Inside of me
Reclaiming, becoming frightening.
I reach out
And my Lord moves closer.
With clarity of vision
We walk in both worlds together.
In the beginning
When life flows in fluid patterns,
Light and shadows play.
In solitude I am becoming
Imprinted with the rhythm of the womb.
Sighing, I know that it is good.
We walk in both worlds together.
Deborah Pratt-Peckham
Andover Newton Theological School
ReaL WoMeN
September 22, 2003
I can’t understand it when you talk to me,
I can’t hear what you are saying behind your word
Hidden—under a scarlet cape
You are a knight in shining
Armor made of aluminum foil,
And I ask, dear brother,
What do you take me for?
A fool?
Fool, you aint got nothin’
But a second guess,
Second chance
Third chance
Fourth chance-
How many chances you gonna need?
Man, I don’t understand the
Words your whispering in my ear.
You saying:
“Real women don’t”
Real women don’t –what?
Don’t need you baby,
Real women don’t need
An aluminum clad warrior,
Real women don’t need
A man to rescue her from darkness,
Real women, baby,
That’s what I am talking about.
Real women got a mind Like a steel trap and can
Protect themselves
Speak for themselves
Fulfill their own dreams—
Baby, now you tell me—
Where’s this real woman
Gonna find a real man?
It’s not that I don’t like men—
‘Cause I do—
Oh, man, I do!
And it’s not that we don’t want you around
It’s that we don’t like the sound
Of your attitude
‘Cause what you’re sayin’ is
That you want the bod,
The whole bod
And nothing but the bod. So helpme-
GOD! It makes me so upset
This disrespect we women get
We don’t want to hear
Your rude comments
--The injustice ferments—
It doesn’t make sense!
You splash us naked in your magazines
Write up songs that are obscene
And it just makes me want to scream:
WHAT THE HELL HAVE YOU DONE
WITH THE LITTLE GIRL’S DREAM?
Plugged it into the television screen?
Barbies line our shelves, America!
You got Boyfriend Barbie
Beach Baby Barbie
Bulimia Barbie
You got the girls who figure skate
And, gee, that’s great,
But then she goes home to her
Easy bake oven and where
Is the chemistry degree in that?
We’ve got Pregnant Barbie
Micky Blue Eyed Barbie
And pretty soon,
You’ll be seein’
Feel Me Up Barbie—
But what you’re feeling
Up isn’t real,
And I wanna get real,
And why aren’t we real?
And when are we gonna be real?
Little boys and little girls
Are losing their independence—
Little boys can’t make their own food
Can’t iron their own cloths
Are taught that little girls are
Little more than service
And that just serves to piss me off!
And through the lessons
Of humanity in
Today’s society and
Yesterday’s society,
We all have something that we’re wanting
And we’re not getting
So stop fretting
Stop regretting
Start RESETTING standards
So that today’s society
Looks brighter for
Tomorrow’s society and
Some day I might be able to say,
Barbie is a real woman too.
--Aubrey C. Erickson.
Boston WUNRN Workshop:
From exclusion to inclusion
The world dances forward,
Then staggers back,
Becoming more human,
Then forgetting that fact.
The conversations are slow and strained;
The resolutions are partial, and pained;
We laugh because it’s better than screaming.
We act because it gives witness to dreaming.
Yet…. we reach out to partner again,
To turn a stranger into friend,
Weaving whole peace where nothing was,
We craft new patterns of ancient love:
We fashion from voices too long silenced,
Alterations for lives too long made violent,
Unlacing cruel choices too often rent
from simple joys, too long absent.
We plait our hopes, our work, our best,
from threads of divergent experience,
dancing our dance in common trust;
We dance this dance because we must.
Carole R. Fontaine, inspired by John Taylor’s remarks
The Lost Girls
Where Greed is the God,
Daughters are expendable.
Where dowry is blackmail,
Doctors are dependable:
Why spend thousands of rupees later
When you could abort your daughter now?!
What a savings for any fine family!
Let all society to Custom bow!
But who will be the brides for later,
Meek breeders for those precious sons?
Ah, the world is never short of females,
And none more obedient than trafficked ones!
She brings no dowry but her womb,
But she costs very little, too.
She can be gone in the flash of a stove fire---
What else can a comfortable family do?
Let daughters be absent around the table;
Let sons prevail and only sons!
Who will march for the little daughter,
Denied her life before it’s begun?
Light a candle for the little lives
Denied of even a single breath!
March until the whole world knows
People of faith say “No!” to such death!
Carole Fontaine
Boston WUNRN Workshop Director
Dedicated to Swami Agnivesh and his November 1, 3005 March against Female Feticide. The Boston WUNRN Workshop participants were unanimous in their condemnation of selective female abortions, and endorse the upcoming protest against the practice.
Written by WUNRN Panelist Raheel Raza and presented at WOMANVOICE on Dec 6, 2004 to commemorate the International Day of Action for Violence Against Women and the 14 women murdered at the Ecole Polytechnic Institute in Montreal, Canada
I AM WOMAN – CELEBRATE ME
From the ashes of Afghanistan
Where you bombed my home and trapped me in a tomb of dust
I am the woman who has risen up like the phoenix
Protected by my burqa - which you see as a symbol of suppression
This tattered cloak - is my only protection
from the mortar and shells
that you gift to my land – as you turn it into a living hell
I shatter the bonds, reach out my hand and
gather the wounded and weeping women of my nation,
Stepping over the blood of our children as I teach them to say “no more”
No more - will we be pawns in the games of political power
No longer will we cower
I’ll find ways to alleviate our ignorance and build walls within which we can learn
I AM WOMAN – EDUCATE ME
I am the woman from a village in Pakistan
Where they threw acid in my face because their honour was at stake
Battered, bullied and bruised – I suffered great pain
But the damage they have done has only fired my resolve
To never let them make MY honour, THEIR gain
I forced the courts to hear my case and took others like me
Caught in the vicious circle of male violence and frenzy
in trying to dehumanize us
My disfigured face has empowered me;
the cries of my sisters have given me strength in my own strength
I won’t be cowed down by cowardly acts
I have found my path and will never return to the fetters of slavery
I ask for no accolades for my bravery
I AM WOMAN – CELEBRATE ME
I am a mother from the Middle East
Step-by-step trying to build bridges of peace
Surrounded by bloody hell
Where every shell
Has the name of an innocent bystander
I am Christian, Muslim and Jew
I bleed the same as you
I am wife, sister, friend and daughter
But our lives are devoid of any laughter
When our children leave home,
we are uncertain
If they will ever return
I AM WOMAN – VALIDATE ME
I am a woman of the street where I am forced to sell my body
part by part
to the highest bidder – like a commodity
to those masters of the flesh trade who don’t know
that we are women – we have a heart
and a soul that is torn apart
when we are used and abused like pieces of flotsam
set afloat on the sea of time with no end in sight
We are a statistic on the pages of hers-tory
Not for the unequal wages we were paid
Or fighting the laws that are man-made
But - for being the principal victims of AIDS
I AM WOMAN – DON’T HUMILIATE ME
I am the Muslim woman who came to this land
Many moons ago
I couldn’t speak the language, I’d never seen snow
I was alone and afraid with nowhere to go
for help, for advice about my woes
they scoffed at my head-scarf, my faith
my accent and the colour of my skin –
I felt forsaken
Yet I weathered all this on my own
I cried but I survived – thankful to be alive
In this land of the free
But are we ever truly free?
Today I am a victim again –after the terror of 9/11
My windows shattered, my mosque desecrated
It’s ironical - but I am told this turmoil is created
by the very people who wish to liberate me
I AM WOMAN – LIBERATE ME
Most of all I am a woman like the rest of you
Privileged for the chance to share in solidarity
As I build the courage to stand up and speak out
against atrocities heaped upon us
Breaking the bonds of cultural and social fanaticism to forge
a special bond with my sisters
In breaking the silence, I reach out across barriers of
Race and religion – in the one cause that binds us together
Our feminine souls intertwined with the souls of 14 others
They were women - therefore they died
WE ARE WOMEN – COMMEMORATE US