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33. Swimming
(Gómez-Castellano, Irene)
978-1-951370-03-9
Swimming leads us through the distinct phases of a woman’s life, raising us with her to the wave’s crest, only to plunge us to the depths of solitude. The demands society places on women, the roles they are expected to play, are juxtaposed with those of the poet, who – like trading an iridescent tail for feet and a pair of high heels – must fit her oceanic creativity into the feet of her verse. And what use is it, moving the pencil of your body through the pool of writing, lap after lap, when nobody is listening to your song?
Author Irene Gómez-Castellano
Translation J. G. McClure
ISBN 978-1-951370-03-9
Pages 133
Format Paperback
Stock available
It so happens I’m tired of being a woman.
I’m tired of your twenty love poems
and your false song of despair.
Where’s the girl now who inspired your verses,
your words that roam the minds
of madwomen like me, ruining life, making it bitter.
We are the poor blind divers,
the astronauts untethered from the mother ship,
spiraling in orbits
toward a black hole,
surrounded by hairs
you notice when you shave.