"In Celebration of My Uterus" - Anne Sexton

I will start by admitting that, yes, this post is simply an excuse to share a poem from my absolute favorite poet. However, it is also very relevant. Not only does Anne Sexton identify as a woman and embrace the ideals of feminism, but her poems also explore sexuality and the limitations placed on a female's expression of that sexuality during the 1960s and early 70s.

Similar to Lorde's life as described in Zami, much of Sexton's work communicates a certain dissonance felt between the desires of women and the socially constructed roles placed on them since infancy. 

Sexton's poem, "In Celebration of My Uterus," is a triumphant praise of womanhood and an encouragement to love and live out one's life as a woman unapologetically and unrestricted. This is yet another perspective on what it means to be a woman -- a perspective not too far distant temporally or ideologically from Lorde's. 

In Celebration of My Uterus 

Anne Sexton

Everyone in me is a bird.
I am beating all my wings.
They wanted to cut you out
but they will not.
They said you were immeasurably empty
but you are not.
They said you were sick unto dying
but they were wrong.
You are singing like a school girl.
You are not torn.

Sweet weight,
in celebration of the woman I am
and of the soul of the woman I am
and of the central creature and its delight
I sing for you. I dare to live.
Hello, spirit. Hello, cup.
Fasten, cover. Cover that does contain.
Hello to the soil of the fields.
Welcome, roots.

Each cell has a life.
There is enough here to please a nation.
It is enough that the populace own these goods.
Any person, any commonwealth would say of it,
“It is good this year that we may plant again
and think forward to a harvest.
A blight had been forecast and has been cast out.”
Many women are singing together of this:
one is in a shoe factory cursing the machine,
one is at the aquarium tending a seal,
one is dull at the wheel of her Ford,
one is at the toll gate collecting,
one is tying the cord of a calf in Arizona,
one is straddling a cello in Russia,
one is shifting pots on the stove in Egypt,
one is painting her bedroom walls moon color,
one is dying but remembering a breakfast,
one is stretching on her mat in Thailand,
one is wiping the ass of her child,
one is staring out the window of a train
in the middle of Wyoming and one is
anywhere and some are everywhere and all
seem to be singing, although some can not
sing a note.

Sweet weight,
in celebration of the woman I am
let me carry a ten-foot scarf,
let me drum for the nineteen-year-olds,
let me carry bowls for the offering
(if that is my part).
Let me study the cardiovascular tissue,
let me examine the angular distance of meteors,
let me suck on the stems of flowers
(if that is my part).
Let me make certain tribal figures
(if that is my part).
For this thing the body needs
let me sing
for the supper,
for the kissing,
for the correct
yes.