I wrote this poem after January 21, 2017. I performed it at the Center for Contemporary Arts in Santa Fe, May 6th, 2017.
Woman Interrupted
A thousand men in cheap toupees
wave blue dresses
rippling and undulating like patriotism
stained and soiled with falsehoods
lock her up, lock her up, lock her up
they chant boisterously
One blonde woman in sensible shoes
stands at a podium
lips twitching from strain
shoulders slumped, knees buckling
under red, white and blue weight
senator, secretary, sweaty salvation
birthing encumbrances
she carries the burden of every woman
Five hundred thousand women in white pant suits
swallow up concrete space
labia-pink knitted hats nod and wink
clever slogans bob up and down like bouys
marching clits, screaming vulvas and singing snatches
snake fluidly through city streets
A thousand brown women in mini skirts
look to the ceiling
scramble up the blond hair rungs
of a deteriorating D.C. ladder
heaving cleavages squashed against glass
red-tape lipstick smeared across transparency
One middle-aged woman in a black pant suit
flashes dejected pearly whites
five hundred thousand deferred dreams
tumble from her shoulders
into putrid puddles of complacency
suicidal bravado slices
into dead air silently
woman rupture, woman interrupted
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Author: rosemarymezadesplas
Farmington, NM-based Latina artist, Rosemary Meza-DesPlas is known for exploring gender, sexuality, and identity issues through hand-sewn human hair drawings, watercolors and on-site drawing installations. She received an MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art and a BFA from The University of North Texas.
Ms. Meza-DesPlas has been sewing with her own hair since 2000. Her decision to collect and sort hair to utilize as a vehicle for making art is informed by socio-cultural symbolism, feminism, body image, and religious symbolism. An article on her hand-sewn human hair drawings was featured in the Huffington Post Arts & Culture section in 2015. Meza-DesPlas’ most recent drawings incorporate her gray hair. In 2019, Rosemary Meza-DesPlas was featured in Santa Fe, NM’s the/magazine as “12 Artists in New Mexico to Know Now”.
Ms. Meza-DesPlas parallels the themes in her artwork with the written word and spoken word performances. In 2018, she presented the academic paper Reclaiming the Tool of Anger: Year of the Angry Women at the 9th International Conference of the Image in Hong Kong. Ms. Meza-DesPlas’ recent spoken word performances were at the Feminist Art Conference, Ontario College of Art & Design, Toronto, Canada; Center for Contemporary Arts, Santa Fe, NM; ARC Gallery in Chicago, IL and the Durango Arts Center in Durango, CO.
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