CONTENTS
Editor’s Note: to Readers and Contributors
Orlando is the Story of a Writer, Maxine Hong Kingston
“Maxine,” image by Sun Cooper
Body II, Jendi Reiter
“Goddess on a Shelf,” image by Jennifer Lothrigel
Call Me Girl
“Sisters,” image by Marianne Murdock
Unfettered by Melva Sue Priddy
The Grasshopper, the Hawk, and the Squash Vine by Felice Wyndham
Float by Wendy Miles
House Dolls by Salud Mora Carriedo
Eagle Girl by Claire McCabe
Kittens by Chloe DeFilippis
Space Invaders by Roxanna Bennett
Someone Blundered by Leonore Hildebrandt
Solitary Prism by Kathleen Hellen
Three-Legged Foal by Yania Padilla Sierra
The Gift of Veneer by Melva Sue Priddy
La Guapa by Marianela Medrano
Sunday Morning by Jeanne Bryner
My Father on His Deathbed by Cynthia Robinson Young
Sweater Girl by Darlene Taylor
Angels and Saints by Chloe DeFelippis
Spring by Chloe Honum
In a Shark’s Mouth by Nicole Lacy
The Difference Between a Child and Offspring by Melva Sue Priddy
Tulip Girl by Michel Wing
Ordinary Sophie by Karen Heuler
Safety by Kimarlee Nguyen
Fat Girl by Melissa Grossman
Kitchens by Michel Wing
Driving Home by Melissa Grossman
Downed Limb by Karen Skolfield
Bouncers by Linda Melick
Ethel Finds Money by Karen Heuler
Mothers by Chloe DeFelippis
Tanka for Precious and Angie and Vivian, in Particular by M. Nzadi Keita
On Shawano Lake by Lora Keller
Space by Lisa Rosenberg
My Father’s Coat by Christy O’Callaghan-Leue
The Third Thing by Kathleen Kelly
Bonfire Girls by Roxanna Bennett
Trash Day by Therese Halscheid
Chicharon by Salud Mora Carriedo
This Girl by Melissa Grossman
Sister’s Night Walk by Abbey Chew
Nice Girl by Cindy Lynn Brown
Entwined Moon by Lauren Triola
This Girl by Ellie O’Leary
Regina by Valerie Speedwell
This World I Want You to Save
“Golden One,” image by Lyndia Radice
this way to This World I Want You to Save
Black Cat in a Field by Beverly Lafontaine
The Laughing Place by Tara L. Masih
Some Rough in the Hand, Some Smooth by Marge Piercy
Airy Humus by Lynn Tudor Deming
Saint Flower by Ann L. Carter
Familiar by Sue Churchill
Snake Molting by Lora Keller
Look for Raven Pairs Flying in a Pre-Mating Ritual by Karen Skolfield
The Cows by Elizabeth Jacobson
Snake Pit by Berwyn Moore
Greenman by Maureen McQuerry
Jaguar Foretells His Own Extinction by Suzette Bishop
Break Beauty by Lisbeth Davidow
“Look at that, you son of a bitch” by Peg Duthie
At the Interface by Renée E. D’Aoust
Keep Calling My Name: Frogs, Circles and Climate
Change by Jocelyn Edelstein
There’s No Place Like Home by Rebecca Hart Olander
Vanishing Point by Melissa Grossman
At Butcher’s Slough by Simona Carini
Cathartidae by Lynn Tudor Deming
Perfect Kernel by Mary Stike
Glide by Ginny Mahar
Coastline Forecast: February by Claudia McGhee
Anchor by Rachel Linn
The Voyage Out: A Poem by Marian O’Brien Paul
Swash Zone by Nancy Carol Moody
Trying to Return by Sandy Gillespie
River Broken Story by Molly Scott
Valley River by Ethel Mays
Oceans by Shirley Plummer
On a Highway of the Pacific Coast by Cheryl Buchanan
Bird Women of Wells-next-the-Sea by Ingrid Jendrzejewski
Almost Awake by Molly Scott
Ama by Nikki Russian
Against the Tide by Janet Thomas
Kantan Tasi, Song of the Sea by Mary Therese Perez Hattori
Song Eater by Ruth Thompson
About the Ocean by Ginny Bitting
Echoes by Caroline LeBlanc
The Journey by Florence Gharibian
Fields of Hveen by Barbara Sabol
The Sun Does Not Set by Mai-Lon Gittelsohn
Off the Moon Path by Jane Schulman
The Way I See It by Diane Lefer
Inside the Bowl (Asaayi Lake) by Leeanna Torres
Church by Susan Austin
On the Bluff, in the Wind by Simona Carini
And When Raven Shortcuts by Carrie Nassif
When You Reach the Red by Gabriela Frank
My Bones Are In You
“Generativity,” image by Marsha Rosenzweig Pincus
this way to My Bones Are In You
No Love Letters by Helen Casey
Legacy by Carol Smallwood
The Button Box by Rebecca Olander
The Saint of Memory: The Peas by Linda Ravenswood
Flight Theory by Alison Adair
Post-Post-Traumatic Stress by Samantha Lamph
The Suitcase by Rinat Harel
Great-Grandmother Annetta by Lisa Lutwyche
Las Mujeres by Gerda Govine Ituarte
Remember This by Darlene Taylor
Interloper by Berwyn Moore
Leah by Lee Ingram
A Crown of Crows by Melissa Coss Aquino
At Lock and Dam No. 10 by Kathleen Kelly
At Least Prostitutes Bring Home Money by Sokunthary Svay
The Tulip-Flame by Chloe Honum
Autumn Melancholy with Birds by Margaret Chula
Advice from Mother on Your One Less Day by Les Bernstein
Vision by Jill Boyles
Mother’s Wishbones, No Doubt by Ruth Sabath Rosenthal
Afterlife by Cassandra Lane
The Ashsong by Kristi Carter
At the Abortion Clinic by Katharyn Howd Machan
Wanting by Molly Beer
Birthday by Shelley Blanton-Stroud
Movement by Deborah Staunton
Birth Marker by Gerda Govine Ituarte
The Birth by Linda Ravenswood
Shushed by Rebecca Roth
Always, Every, Only by Susan Sarver
Margie’s Monologue by Thelma Virata de Castro
Kymopoeia by Tina Pocha
Premonition by Faith Holsaert
At Precisely the Corner by Faith Holsaert
The Disappointed Women by Celeste Helene Schantz
Boy Child by Gerda Govine Ituarte
Outside Modern Myths: Waiting in the Car While the Teens
Battle on Game Night by Rebecca Olander
The Bones of His Face by Jan Lewbin
Spear Maiden to Persephone by Geri Lipschultz
Unwinding by Anita Barnard
There’s a Tornado in My Mind by Ann L. Carter
Maternity by Sue Churchill
Orbit without Gravity by Page Lambert
On the Eve of a Daughter’s Fortieth Birthday by Laurie Klein
A New Theology by Sheila Bender
Identity by Gerda Govine Ituarte
Breathing Room by Holly Norton
Windy by Annita Sawyer
Tissue by Berwyn Moore
Poem for My Mother by Mary Elise Bailey
Honey by Margaret Chula
The Daughter Walk by Sheila Bender
The Dreaming by Ruth Thompson
My Body Is Not Your Politics
“Embodiment (detail),” image by Lisa Naas
this way to My Body Is Not Your Politics
Why My Body by Antonia Clark
A Number of Blue Women by Anita M. Barnard
Before We Met by Zehra Imam
My Body Is Not Your Politics by Hannah Bonner
How To Love Your Body by Kelly Cressio-Moeller
The Photographer’s Model by Jeannette Miller
Molding by Sokunthary Svay
Daughter, They’ll Use Even Your Own Gaze to Wound You by Beth Ann Fennelly
There Is More Light Every Day (A Song for Uneven Fingernails) by Anna Hundert
Tijuana by Holly Norton
My Brother by Katharyn Howd Machan
What We Talk About When We Talk About Father Rucker by Cheryl Buchanan
Won’t You Be My Valentine by Elizabeth Hoover
What Sets Her Apart, Asks Jayne After Reading Another
Guinevere Poem For Me In Massachusetts by Tania Pryputniecz
What Sets Her Apart, Part II by Tania Pryputniecz
What We Call Love Is Seldom What We Fall Into by Sandy Gillespie
Body Parts by Margaret Stetler
The Untenable by Cynthia Reeser
Comfort Woman by Tanya Ko-Hong
What Is the Medicine for Rape by Trina Porte
Survivor’s Guide to Sex by Elizabeth Hoover
Not Always by Denise Miller
The Distance Between by Maureen McQuerry
How Big the Sky by Anna Hundert
Bet You Thought You Saw the Last of Me by Rachel Durs
Sooner or Later the Body Betrays Us by Beverly Lafontaine
Inside Frida Kahlo’s Body by Mercedes Lawry
Lupus Outwits Me, Declares Martial Law by Susan Eisenberg
Leap by Susan Austin
Stef’s Request by Abigail Licad
When You’ve Been Sick for a Time by Susan Austin
Small Talk at Evanston General by Beth Ann Fennelly
After the Cut by Mai-Lon Gittelsohn
The Tattoo I Did Not Get by Felicia Mitchell
When They Ask About My Face by Nancy Carol Moody
Coming Back by Beverly Lafontaine
At the Yoga Shanti Class for Cancer Survivors by Cheryl Buchanan
Crone Hands by Molly Howes
Hungers by Catherine Moore
The Pink Hairbrush by S.J. Eaves
My Skin Is Not Enough to Keep Me Warm by Beverly Lafontaine
If He, If She Would Only
“Divorce Journals,” image by Martha Donovan
Lovers in the Age of Airmail by Kelly Cressio-Moeller
The Geography of First Kisses by Karin Cecile Davidson
Recognition by Sandy Gillespie
Postcard from Sissinghurst by Denise DiMarzio
Moby Dick and the Beginning of the End by Ingrid Jendrzejewski
Persephone Tells All by Ruth Thompson
Self-Portrait as a Message From Rapunzel to the Princes
Trying to Rescue Her by Michalle Gould
Without Turning by Sandy Gillespie
There Is This Wildness by Molly Scott
The Promenade by Toni Loefler
Diner by Jackie Davis Martin
Co– by Jennifer Campbell
Schrodinger’s Wife Sells the House by Jennifer Campbell
I Promise I’m Always Careful by Alethea Alden
When a Ghost Touches Your Body by Kristi Carter
Café Des Artistes by Sally Taylor Tawil
Anatomy of a Lighthouse by Rita Anderson
Riding Past the Museum of Natural History by Ruth Sabath Rosenthal
Sustenance by Sarah Russell
Unanticipated Effects of Altitude by Jennifer Steil
Body Memories, Keening, Scars by Erin Pushman
The Bronx: A Love Story by Melissa Coss Aquino
Asian Woman by Tanya Ko Hong
Breathing Fee by Tanya Ko Hong
Reception by Meghan Giles
Aura by Ginny Rachel
The Cage Is Open by Margaret Chula
So by Martha Andrews Donovan
Open or Safe by Laura Grace
Parallax by Jeanette Miller
Denouement by Sarah Russell
Dogs and Men in Bed by Marcia Meier
Company by Muriel Nelson
Blue Moon and Bright Mars by Sandy Coomer
Verdad Justicia Amor
“Queen Without a Face,” image by Monteque Pope-Le Beau
this way to Verdad Justicia Amor
Abnegation by Cynthia Reeser
Aunt Jemima, Eleanor Bumpers, and Sandra Bland by Breena Clarke
Power by Susan Eisenberg
The Summer Lolly by Breena Clarke
Stirring by M. Nzadi Keita
Quiet 1 With Eyes by M. Nzadi Keita
Imagine: A Love Song by Denise Miller
Making Waves in 1798 by Tammi Truax
102. by M. Nzadi Keita
Bulletin by Cheryl Clarke
Terrible Fortune Inside My Head, Grenadine by Lynne Thompson
And / Or / Against / For by Vero Gonzalez
The Weight of White by Lorraine Mejia
The, a lyrical soliloquy by Chiori Miyagawa
Diaspora by Faith Holsaert
You Are Migrant by Katherine DiBella Seluja
Raqqa, Syria to Crete by Susan Shaw Sailer
The Refugee by Julie Christine Johnson
Blackbirds by Karen Heuler
Manifest Destiny by Kirin McCrory
This Land by Chloe DeFilippis
Women’s Voices by Diana Woodcock
Mothers Who Carry Their Own Water by Gerda Govine Ituarte
Spoil of War by Leatha Kendrick
Telling Stories at Tea Time by Zehra Imam
Silence on a June Morning, 1944 by Tracy Davidson
The Last Diary Entries of Septimus Warren Smith by Katherine Orr
The Late Afternoon Light Crashed All Around – a novel excerpt by Karin Cecile Davidson
L’Orange by Page Lambert
No Radio by Sokunthary Svay
Nocturne by Charlotte Muse
Backblast Area Clear by Karen Skolfield
How to Get Inside of a Ship That Won’t Let You In by Debbie Urbanski
Blood Moon by Elizabeth Jacobson
Ghazal for Emilie Parker by Carolyne Wright
Sexy Barbie Rapunzel by Deb Jannerson
The Frame of a Couch Is Not a Couch by Karen Skolfield
Good Stories by Esther Cohen
Like a Maelstrom with a Notch by Lois Marie Harrod
Smash Shop by Elizabeth Jacobson
Untitled [When have you ever heard a silent crowd?] by Monika Cooper
Where I Am Standing by Marsha Pincus
Mooring the Boat to the Dock by Sarah Black
Sculpture Under A Bridge by Debbie Hall
Home by Kristen Ringman
Sisterhood of the Barbed Wire Museum
“Acts of Bravery (Day 1 & 3),” image by Lois Bradley
this way to Sisterhood of the Barbed Wire Museum
We Should Have by Carrie Nassif
Before the Show by Donna J. Gelagotis Lee
Delores (Part One) by Esther Cohen
Delores (Part Two) by Esther Cohen
Third Platoon Learns Cover & Concealment by Karen Skolfield
Sista-Girl by Louise McKinney
She Whispers Korean in My Ear by Tanya Ko Hong
Bracelets by G. Evelyn Lampart
Unity Orders by Kate Simonian
Coming in Second by Ruth Sabath Rosenthal
Black Swans: A Poem for Voices by Katharyn Howd Machan
Some Secrets by Debbie Urbanski
Small Bodies by Alexandra Reisner
You Accompany Parents Through Winter by Alice Cone
Tortoise by Naomi Westerman
Anne Frankenstein by Deborah Thompson
Wild Faith by Karla Morton
Woman Warriors: Babae/Babaylan by Aimee Suzara
The Woman Who Picked Me Up by Antonia Clark
Blue Goddesses by Laura Chaignon
Dada Does Dominoes by Glenda Reed
The Jugular by Karla Morton
My South by Wendy Carlisle
Grip by Lauren Camp
Indra’s Net by Ji Hyang Padma
No Milk Over Tea by Zehra Imam
Freshman by Sue Churchill
Agoraphobia by Susan Austin
Woman Finds Her Face by Lois Marie Harrod
Persephone by Elizabeth Moller
Bipolar Girls on a Manic High Are My Addiction by Stephanie Heit
This Poem Will Refuse to Confess by Emily Regier
Lines by Yania Padilla Sierra
Ace of Pentacles by Roxanna Bennett
Stealin’ from the Dead by K. Bruce Florence
Stones by Michel Wing
Untitled [the dark knows this] by Jennifer Patterson
Her American Life by Sokunthary Svay
The Siege of Ennis by Eileen O’Leary
Mrs. Ramsey by Rebecca Ruth Gould
She Shall Soon Find a Way by Julie Babcock
Wanting for Grace by Donna J. Gelagotis Lee
Final Crescent by Jane Schulman
Rapunzel Brings Her Women’s Studies Class to the Tower by Susan J. Erickson
A Voice Answering a Voice
“Knock,” image by Dawn Banghart
this way to A Voice Answering a Voice
Living with Ghosts by Ellen McLaughlin
Quotations [and Responses] by Sandy Gillespie
Hymnal by Linda Ravenswood
Anna’s Hut at Komarovo by Trina Gaynon
Celebrate for Anais Nin by Nancy Shiffrin
What Woolf Dares Us to Write by Lauren Rusk
Her Poem, the Oak Tree by Tammi Truax
To the Lighthouse by Kim Hamilton
Virginia Woolf’s Hollyhocks by Deborah Doolittle
What Remains by Maggie Stetler
The Only Surviving Recording of Virginia Woolf’s Voice by Alison Townsend
To Virginia by George Ella Lyon
To the Lighthouse by Marcia Arrieta
The Poem by Diane Furtney
Reading Virginia Woolf in the Nineties by Kristie Letter
The Power to Contemplate: An Artist Responds to Virginia Woolf by Jennifer Carson
Women, Windows by Lauren Rusk
People as Evidence by Lauren Camp
Studio Visit: Later by Susanna Lang
Droom by Margaret Chula
Pentimento by Catherine Moore
Color Coded by Lauren Camp
Practice by Alison Hicks
Contact Dance in the Mission District by Dawn Banghart
Copper by Caroline LeBlanc
Make a Body by Nancy Meyer and Janet Trenchard
Audre Lorde’s Unfinished Business: Working Through Religious Resistance to Cancer
Treatment by Pamela Yetunde
Angel Factory by Brianna Johnson
… and Stones by Gillian Barlow
Confessions of a Family Woman by Chivas Sandage
Mad Bad Sad Woman by Audrey Chin
WAVES: AROHO Retreat 2015 by Kristi Crutchfield Cox
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman by Patricia Farewell
A Meditation on the Wave by Sarah Brooks
Against by Vero Gonzalez
The Briefing by Lisa Rosenberg
Writing in Mothertime by Geri Lipschultz
Pollination by Barbara Ann Yoder
Last Class by Shawn Lacy
The Workshop by Joanne Jagoda
She’s Got Some Nerve by Janet Fitch
Retro Causation by Peggy Dobreer
Fragments of Anna Dickinson by Sarah Hahn Campbell
Terrible Girls by Jennifer Patterson
What It Takes by Karen McElmurray
Snatch by Christine Wade
Re-interpreting the Carved Revenge on Your Own Back by Shauna Osborn
Against My Own Current; Out in Plain Air by Lisa Lutwyche
The Task by Alison Hicks
Erotics of Making by Barbara Rockman
Counting and What’s Counted On by Robyn Hunt
Unmaking the Form by Marya Hornbacher
Now You Must Love This Too
“Dragging Virginia Woolf’s Body Out of the Ouse,” image by Christy Sanford
this way to Now You Must Love This Too
Old Woman by Ruth Rifka
Bernard Brings a Drink by Jill Barth
Woman Waiting by Antonia Clark
Elegy to a Woman Writer, A Friend by Barbara Rockman
When the Moonlight by Berwyn Moore
Visit to Sete by Lynn Deming
Untitled jisei series by Shirley Plummer
In Memory Of by Peg Duthie
Lady Lazarus by Jacqueline Doyle
Cycle for Nembetsu Udori, Festival to Summon
Ancestral Spirits by Judy Schavrien
Dimensions by Claire Polders
Singing at the End by Molly Scott
Plunge by Margaret Chula
Responsibility by Shirley Plummer
October Ends by Marsha Howland
Why You’re Afraid of the Road by Charlotte Muse
Beginning the Journey by Ruth Thompson
Karma by Felicia Mitchell
The Mirror by Lytton Bell
Promise by Barbara Sullivan
At the Whaling Museum, Point Lobos by Ruth Thompson
The Vigil by Dipika Guha
Last Bus by Lynn Deming
Incantation by Maureen Cummins
Bring Me the God of Mrs. Garcia by Susan Kelly-DeWitt
Where God Lives by Jeanne Bryner
Dogma by Cynthia Reeser
Host by Roz Spafford
St. Lunatic by Gayle Bell
Water Women by Alla Bozarth
Isles of the Wise by Sharon Suzuki-Martinez
Village Shakti by Verena Tay
The Ghigau Women by Sun Cooper
Abbey of Our Lady at Gethsemani by Sherry Chandler
Questions for the Angel Gabriel II by Anna Hundert
Mother of the Disappeared by Roz Spafford
A Village of Their Own by Niloufar Behrooz
Safe House by Jude Rittenhouse
Poem as a Field of Action by Berwyn Moore
The Arbor of Chance by Peggy Dobreer
Summer at Twenty-One by Eva M. Schlesinger
Next to You, Permanence by Elizabeth Jacobson
Horseshoe Crab Fandango by Nancy Krim
Stone Love by Joanna Clapps Herman
Call by Alla Bozarth
Psalm of Fire and Water by Cristina Baptista
Women’s Work by Jude Rittenhouse
Doors by Dawn Banghart
Patience by Mary Elise Bailey
Sleeping Under Snow by Susan Austin
The Handless Maiden by Christina Lee
The Last I Saw Mitsou by Karin Cecile Davidson
On the Need to Re-establish Sovereignty Over My Own Heart by Trina Porte
Rebuilding the ’63 Beetle by Nancy Krim
There Was a Door by Leatha Kendrick
Selkie by Sandra Cross
The Potential of Yellow Roses by Susan J. Erickson
Adie by Jay Merill
Woman of Myriad Seeds by Margaret Stetler
She Let Herself Go by George Ella Lyon
How will you begin? by Barbara Rockman
The Beginner by Janet Fitch
Writing the Dress by Barbara Rockman
Maxine Hong Kingston, Q & A