Who bows to honor this ordinary woman?

From: Barrett Wolf
Length: 02:01

Poem for the Women who voted in Iraq Read the full description.

Piece Audio

Playing: Who bows to honor this ordinary woman?
From: Barrett Wolf

Port1seated_small Narrative poem for the brave women who voted in the Iraqi election, despite centuries of repression and the immediate risk of personal violence. Hey, just because I'm a biker/poet doesn't mean other poetic spheres are off limits!

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Piece Description

Narrative poem for the brave women who voted in the Iraqi election, despite centuries of repression and the immediate risk of personal violence. Hey, just because I'm a biker/poet doesn't mean other poetic spheres are off limits!

Transcript

Who bows to honor this ordinary woman?

A woman returns to what is left of her house?
She bears a mark
On the tip of one finger?

She has beheld madness' hand
Stirring exotic spices into an apocalypse brew
in the eyes of her sister-in-law
who burst past the checkpoint
disappearing in that long, long second
when the C-4 borne across her chest like
swaddled baby became the quick, hot wind
of the four horsemen.

She bears a mark
On the tip of one finger?

She has beheld madness hand
saluting generations forlornly laying down lives
To rout one invader after another
From the arid place that is home.

She has risen above the epitaphs of family
The whining song of the sniper's bullet
The truncheon truth of religious police
The mortar rounds random cataclysm
The ages of bare feet and pregnancy
The lack of formal education
The claustrophobic concealment of...
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