Tenure Poems

° Developing a Voice from a Shadow °Tenuous Times

Developing a Voice from a Shadow       Mary Lynn Hamilton I want to write              That I am bathed in the accumulated anger of endless years of waiting I want to seize the page and write words               That will force them to examine their beliefs  I want to demand that they shed their privileged skins              And feel the weight of silent, subtle domination. I want to make them to endure the subjugation of principles              That occurs only when entangled in a subverted terrain. I want them to experience the crisis of spirit               That permeates every air molecule of their body. I want them to know the deadening results of their thoughtless, unconsidered, tyrannical, uninspired, dangerous, unconscious acts perpetrated upon me. And who are THEY? Can I simply damn them all with one word - MALE?  Or just add color - WHITE? No, that would be too easy and not at all accurate. Although most often of one color, white,              These pedantic demons found within the rock walls were both male and female. I could easily condemn the masculinist perspective               Of the men for their arrogant, pretentious, self-righteous attitudes. They acted as if they ran the hallowed academic halls, and they did. I could less easily condemn the females                Who represented the female men of academic legend. These beings would betray whatever/whomever necessary to succeed,               having relinquished most vestiges of the their true feminine selves. (Do not misread my words!               I am not addressing the amazons among my peers who valued themselves and their               relations with all colleagues, and who acted as models for humane success) Perhaps I should feel sorry for them,              and their need to behave in masculine ways, I don't.  Instead, I feel betrayed and victimized by their evil plans. I want THEM to know that I am not their notion of very good. I want THEM to recognize that I value my author-colleagues more               than I value THEIR desire for me to think in a singular, traditional fashion. I want THEM to consider the strength of synergy rather than autonomy. Yet, I want THEM to recognize my uniqueness               and my struggle to contribute to the world. And I want to condemn THEM for their very shallow vision of the very large               world.

Tenuous Times       Mary Lynn Hamilton I am tenured by people who              don’t know me. I stand before myself wearied by the time              -- spent sucking, pushing, resisting the indignities of tradition I am an opened wound attached to your hallowed halls              like a remora on its host. I represent my vanquished sisters and some brothers,              infected by your pernicious neglect  Almost slain by your fallacious theories of success. I am before you enraged. Seething with an anger anchored in ancient conflict. I spit out the infectious pus accumulated during six years of compliance. You valued me as a good or a very good,              a number in a slot. You valued me as a beast of burden,                            whose absent mouth offered no words of resistance. You neglected to see creativity while              Attempting to force my ideas into your tradition. I am an/other whose my ample female shape that does not fit in. Long, dark hallways impose ominous but invisible restraints As graying white-faced masculine entities stare out              Damning me for my form. And what is my role in all of this? I feel I have miscarried rather than given birth to new ideas I have not resisted so that my colleagues have heard Next year others will follow the same path. I haven’t changed the system.