WomanSpeak Calls for Personal Essays, Art and Photography by Caribbean Women

"When a woman tells the truth about her life the world splits open." MURIEL RUKEYSER

WomanSpeak , a Journal of Writing and Art by Caribbean Women, has always been about cultivating and collecting the writing that tells the truth about the lives of women in and of the Caribbean. We are committed to the idea that our personal stories of survival and transformation are the most powerful and political of all. We are especially in search of personal essays by the truth-tellers of our generation for vol. 7/2013 themed, "Voices of Dissent: Writing to Transform the Culture." We especially want essays that confront and challenge the powerful forces at work around us and within us trying to convince us that our womanish lives are not worth fighting for, or that our struggle for equality, enlightenment and empowerment in our own lives and in the world as Caribbean women is not the stuff of fine literature. What is your story? We want to hear it.

We are also calling for submissions of art and photography for the upcoming issue of the journal.  Where are the conscious, political, Caribbean women artists of our generation who dare to make paintings that speak to the political and social concerns we have as women? Yes, it is true, we think, that every stroke of the brush, every sploosh of colour is political, because the creative act is always political, no matter the subject of the art. But these are the days of a new Feminist awakening in the Caribbean, the new movement is in need of not only writers but painters too whose work explores the truth of Caribbean women's lives, the way we struggle, survive, transform, emerge and carry on, we need the images and renderings that express our outrage and then too our visions of hope and renewal. We are in search of images that depict and inspire our new revolution, that connect us to the sacred grandmothers of activism, that will serve as letters to future generations of Caribbean women, so they never forget, we were here, and we put our best creative energies toward making the world a better place for them.

Here are the submission requirements for art and photography. The camera should be set at the highest resolution setting for the largest images. Images need to be at least 2400 pixels x 3000 pixels or 8 x 10 inches at 300ppi resolution or higher. They can be supplied from the camera as jpg's. Please send them in an email attachment to lynnsweeting@gmail .com with WSJ submission in the subject line.

WomanSpeak is also accepting poetry, short fiction and fairy tales. Deadline is April 30.

Call for Fairy Tales for WomanSpeak Vol. 7/2013

 

I love fairytales. As a child my favourite one was The Twelve Dancing Princesses, who got locked in their room but escaped through a magic door to a place where they danced till dawn, then returned in the morning to be found in their beds, their shoes mysteriously muddy and torn to shreds. As a little girl I was also "locked" in my room, bed-ridden, unable to move, recovering from injuries I sustained in an experimental orthopedic surgery gone wrong. When I eventually learned to walk I tore my own shoes to shreds. When I read the story as a young teen, I was in the story, I was the thirteenth dancing princess, together with them I too made my escape.

Very special to this journal is the section devoted to fairy tales. We are especially in search of new tellings of traditional Caribbean folk tales with a womanish twist. (Anansi as a woman, anyone? Did Brer Rabbie have a sister? What's she up to these days? Did the Gaulin Wife leave a daughter behind when she turned into a big black bird and flew away? And we love brand new tales too, with new characters and quests entirely of your own imagining, as long as they are full of the wondrous magic that exists only in the world of fairy tales, folk tales and myths, and "take us on a descent to find something that was lost and bring it back to consciousness again."

What have we lost as Caribbean women in the patriarchy? What do we have to do to get it back? We're calling for the fairytales and myths by a new generation of writers that show us the way for the upcoming WomanSpeak.

Please send your stories and art in an email attachment to lynnsweeting@gmail.com. Deadline for submissions is April 30, 2013.

I cannot wait to read your wonderful stories.

Poem for International Women's Day

Poem for the Goddess of the Invisible Ones
(For International Women's Day 2013)

When her car finally went down the embankment to the sea

and she was sitting in the middle of the road, cars flying by,

hair on end, eyes wild, pouring tears for blood, screaming,

I just need some help, and no one was slowing down, much less

stopping, because this was Eastern Road and she was rough

around the edges, crazy with despair, maybe dangerous,

you were riding shotgun with me and you said, stop.

So I pulled over, heart slamming, this was just the sort of thing

that could land a woman like me in trouble. She stared

straight through us into the black sky of her madness, silent now.

We stood by the car calling to her, Hello, come out of the road!

She paid no mind. Traffic rose up around her like afternoon tide.

I’ll stay with her, you said, you go and call the police.

Minutes  down the road I saw cruisers coming east,

three of them with lights flashing. Would there be a single

compassionate cop in any one of those cars to

rescue that woman with kind word medicine, a cup of tea,

a doctor, a drive home? I tried to believe yes, only comforted

by the fact that you had remained with her, Goddess

of the Invisible Ones, when they took her away to no one

knows where. You held her like a hurt child, whispering

in her ear, I see you,  I see what you’ve been going through.

You listened when she told you the whole story that led

up to the car wreck, you stayed up through the long night

as she talked. When the sun rose you gave her a mirror, she looked,

saw herself,  rising. You didn’t mind when to thank you

she called you by another god’s name, all that mattered was

that one more invisible woman had become visible to herself,

one more woman struggling in the island patriarchy had remembered,

she was real, she was good, she was someone worth fighting for.

Calling for Rights for Persons With Disabilities in The Bahamas

I am standing with the President of the Bahamas National Council for Disability and calling for a constitutional amendment that protects the fundamental human rights of and prohibits the discrimination against persons with disabilities.

Mrs Sheila Culmer spoke on behalf of an estimated 27,000 Bahamians with disabilities on Thursday when she addressed the Constitutional Committee meeting in Nassau demanding a provision in the constitution prohibiting discrimination against persons with disabilities. She said the clause should cover both direct and indirect discrimination. She advised the committee that there must be an inclusion of a provision guaranteeing the rights of persons with disabilities to have access and be provided with legal aid and affordable legal services to ensure they have access to justice. And too, Mrs Culmer advised, the constitution must be amended to include an express provision mandating persons with disabilities have access to adequate transport, housing, healthcare and education.

This is a big deal. It is unacceptable that our constitution fails to define and protect the human rights of persons with disabilities, ie, persons like me. 

This, combined with the fact that the constitution also fails to protect me as a woman, means I am at risk every day for a spectrum of human rights abuses in my country, both directly and indirectly, in both small and enormous, devastating ways.  

Why are we still having to petition our governments for these kind of constitutional reforms in this day and age? Why can’t one government or another simply fix these glaring human rights problems with the constitution, without the whole referendum thing? Some amendments should be made without being put to a public vote. We elect governments to lead, so let them lead at times like these. At least, let them listen. I remember Mrs Culmer advocating for human rights for persons with disabilities since my reporting days back in the eighties. Why has her voice fallen on deaf ears? 

Why haven’t I added my own voice to hers until now?

Comfort. Privilege. Laziness. Selfishness.  

But recent events in my personal life have shaken me out of my complacency. I am having to face the fact that I am indeed at risk every day for human rights abuses because I am a person with disabilities. Mrs Culmer’s statements in the middle of my current struggle are a wake-up call for me, reminding me of my obligation to publicly join her in the call for this constitutional amendment. Her statements have made me mindful of all the many Bahamian citizens with disabilities who are also burdened with poverty because for them the risks for human rights abuses are far greater. I feel compelled to use my voice to speak for those who have lost their voices or are ignored, to join mine with the other voices  demanding human rights reform in this country.

WomanSpeak Vol.7/2013 Call For Submissions

WomanSpeak, a Journal of Literature and Art by Caribbean Women, edited and published by Lynn Sweeting, is calling for submissions for volume 7/2013, an issue especially themed, "Voices of Dissent: Women Speaking to Transform the Culture."

I am looking for the works of a new generation of Caribbean Feminist writers and painters who care about the lives of women and will dare to use their creative voices to shock us out of our complacency and into action.  I see a new Feminist consciousness struggling to rise up across the Caribbean these days. I see women organizing, they are naming the human rights issues facing Caribbean women and their children, they are gathering and disseminating the information, they are discussing the issues and commenting on them from a Feminist perspective. I see far flung pockets of Caribbean Feminists connecting with one another on the web and made hopeful by the enormous potential that holds for creating a real and powerful women's movement across our region. 

But where is the literature and art of the new Feminist movement of the new generation? Where are the women poets who will articulate the struggle, nurture and grow it, give it movement, meaning and empowerment by addressing the issues in their highest and best work? Where are the writers who will redefine Feminism for a new generation of Caribbean women, and do it in fine literature and art? Where are the women writers and painters who feel an urgency to speak out in their work about the social issues that matter most to Caribbean women? Where are the feminist poets and writers speaking with each other about the roles they play and the responsibilities they bear in the struggle to uplift the lives of all Caribbean women? Where does the bookish young Caribbean woman turn when she wants to read works by the best womanish minds of her generation to inspire her, to give her the words she needs to get herself and her own voice free? 

A Feminist is someone who believes that women's rights are human rights. A Feminist woman is one who cares about the lives of other women and children and supports local and global efforts to uplift, liberate and transform those lives, because she understands her own freedom is incomplete until all women are free.  Really, how can any of us say we are not Feminists? And yet so many women do.  Women against women's rights are in the majority in my country, The Bahamas. Any doubt of that was laid to rest when in 2000 they voted overwhelmingly against correcting discrimination against women in the Bahamian constitution as the whole world watched. Bahamian women again turned on their sisters in trouble last year when they voiced their absolute opposition to the proposed legislation that would have given battered wives the right to bring charges of rape against their abusive husbands. The majority of women I talk to avoid any involvement in the struggle for human rights for women because they have been trained by various father god religions to blame the devil, pray hard and leave it to their god to work out for them.

Dissent is impossible to find among women in New Age circles too. I call it the cult of positive thinking, that whole Louise Hay methodology that says you can change your life by changing the way you think. (This is not new at all, just a new spin on patriarchy's founding tenant, "I think therefore I am," deifying thought (traditionally male) over emotion (traditionally female). It just isn't fashionable right now for women to get angry, to get an issue, to take a stand, to create an action or a movement to transform the culture. We are too busy being hyper-grateful to even acknowledge the ongoing war against women across the Caribbean and the world, too busy having positive thoughts and sending out good vibrations to acknowledge the discrimination women face because they are women, or to get an idea about an action they could take to change it. As for the women falling in the wars, they speak out but no one can hear them, and the women who've been working in the trenches thirty years tending to the wounded and the dead, they speak out but no one can hear them over the din of prayers and platitudes. Any woman who does speak out for other women from a Feminist point of view (or anything at all like it) will often look around and find herself standing alone.

We are beginning to hear the voices of Caribbean women dissenters on the web. Writers like Simone Lied and associations like Code Red for Gender Justice are bearing witness to the persecution and suffering of women and actively protesting the patriarchal status quo in their work. But where are the poets, the fiction writers, the painters of the new generation of Feminists who work to articulate the struggle for equality, peace and justice for women? Whose works deliberately resist the powerful forces without and within at work to keep us in a second class state? I believe that when we make  spaces for them, they will come. WSJ Volume 7/2013 is one of these spaces.

We are seeking poetry, short fiction, fairy tales, essays, paintings and photographs for the new issue. Deadline (or, lifeline) for submissions is May 31, 2013. I'm planning for a September release. Please send submissions to lynnsweeting@gmail.com with "WSJ submission" and your name on the subject line.






 

Three Cheers for Operation Potcake

It is after midnight and I'm tired but I can't be nearly as tired as the hundreds of volunteers responsible for "Operation Potcake," an amazing spay and neuter initiative now underway on the island of New Providence. They have been working tirelessly for the past seven days in clinics and surgeries across the island, spaying and neutering hundreds of "potcake" dogs for free, in an effort to reduce the numbers of strays on the streets, and to educate the public about the need to stop breeding and to rescue homeless dogs instead. The volunteers come from all the animal welfare and activist groups, and the goal is to sterilize 2,000 animals before this year's effort is through. Reports are that people in the community are stepping up and throwing their support behind this year's project, which will culminate on January 21. So far reports are that Operation Potcake 2013 is a resounding success. I wish to pay tribute to every one of the volunteers involved in this initiative, most of whom will never get any public acknowledgement for their hard work and self sacrifice. Because of their work in Operation Potcake there will be less hungry and homeless dogs on the streets of New Providence, and more people who understand the crucial importance of spaying and neutering their animals. I wish to thank them all for their extraordinary work and for restoring my faith in Bahamians, and in humanity.

Rhonda's Run for Conservation of Coral Reef Ecosystems

On Saturday past my lifelong friend Bahamian Rhonda Claridge made history when she ran the entire 120 mile length of Great Abaco Island nonstop to save the coral reef ecosystems of The Bahamas that makes up the third largest barrier reef system in the world. Rhonda conceived this epic, world-record making event to raise funding and public awareness for the work of Friends of The Environment based on Great Abaco Island, the non-profit organization which largely facilitates and coordinates environmental scientific research of The Bahamas and creates the hard evidence necessary for advocating new policies that better protect and defend coral reefs and all of the wonders and treasures of nature in these islands. She was driven to create this event recent reports indicate that coral reef systems around the world, rapidly dying because of warmer sea temperatures and acidification caused by the burning of fossil fuels, will not survive past this century. Children today, they said, will be the last generation to see living coral reefs. Rhonda was compelled to make a meaningful and powerful contribution to the effort to save our reefs and ultimately our beloved ocean. As she has said: “The sea is not only beautiful, it is alive, and it supports the entire Caribbean.” So she ran across Great Abaco Island non-stop in 22 hours, 45 minutes, an athletic feat in the spirit of Diana Nyad and others who are compelled to push the limits of physical and mental strength and stamina do what has never been done before, but not just for the record books. Rhonda’s mission was to generate funding and public support for the research work of the Friends of the Environment organization, and ultimately to give the Bahamas’ reef system a voice. Hundreds of people pledged gifts of financial support for the run and followed her progress from Crown Haven to Sandy Point on the Friends of the Environment Facebook page. She finished well under her projected time, made history, generated a big chunk of money for a great cause and rewarded herself with stew fish at Nancy’s with family and friends. But the thing that struck her the most about the whole experience was the way the people of every town along the route came out to support her, to cheer for her, to run with her. When I spoke to her on the phone Saturday night she couldn't say enough about the support they so generously gave her. "In the beginning I wasn't entirely invested in the run," she said. "I didn't know if anyone knew about it or if they would care, and I knew the terrain, the pavement, was going to be brutal. But the people really pulled me through. In every single town people came out to cheer me on. There were lots of women out, all through the night, in their nighties and sleeping caps, calling out, "you can do it baby!" The men were out too and I could hear them saying, "She don't know how far it is to Sandy Point, hey?" I went through a Haitian community and they came out and gave me money. There was a young guy who ran with me for about ten miles. People I hadn't seen in ten years showed up to escort me. In Murphy Town two guys were sitting on the wall when I ran past and at that point I had a big motorcade behind me, and I heard one of them say, "What is she doing?" and the other one said, "She's running to save to reefs." That really made me feel good. I realized that the people do know the issues and they do care. They made me really proud to be a Bahamian." I'm really proud of Rhonda, who in other realities is an accomplished writer whose work is included in the 2010/volume 5 issue of WomanSpeak. For now she has my deepest admiration and gratitude for completing this amazing run, for focusing our attention on the protection and conservation of our coral reef ecosystems, and for creating an event to uplift and inspire us, and bring us together in a way never seen before. I could say she is an example of one of those ordinary people doing extraordinary things, but she isn't ordinary. Not at all.