I can think of no more worthy a celebration than to sit down to a glass of wine (cocoa, tea, beer, cranberry juice), while reading the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay. My acquaintance with her is slight, by way of Witch Wife and First Fig. I am rectifying that by downloading A Few Figs From Thistles to my Kindle.

THURSDAY

AND if I loved you Wednesday,
Well, what is that to you?
I do not love you Thursday–
So much is true.

And why you come complaining
Is more than I can see.
I loved you Wednesday,–yes–but what
Is that to me?

Edna St. Vincent Millay

A worthy read for those who have not read this early feminist and award winning poet.

The Kindle Version is avaiable at no cost, click on the book, or you can read the collection here.

Whether from your blogroll or your bookshelf, read a woman today.

peace

To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget.

Arundhati Roy

The last installment for this women’s week is in 1997 Booker Prize winner for “God of Small Things”, and subsequent Indian activist, Arundahti Roy.

Roy is above all things, what she calls, a “world citizen”. What I appreciate most about her and her work is that she is a public intellectual not bound to the agenda of a think tank, university, or government. There is no government preventing her from using her voice, no think tank or university absconding her thoughts to their own end.

Born in India, the former architectural student wrote movies and screenplays before writing her Booker Prize winning fiction novel. Subsequently she decided to use her voice another way, she concentrated on activism, non-fiction books and essays. She became an outspoken critic of India’s nuclear weapons testing and environmental policies, a vocal critic of the Narmada Dam project, writing The Greater Common Good an essay which can be seen in full in her non-fiction book “The Cost of Living” — a book of two essays on India’s massive dam and irrigation projects and its successful detonation of a nuclear bomb. She donated her Royalties from her Booker Prize winning book to Narmada Bachao Andolan.

Criticized by many, including environmental historian Ramachandra Guha who called her tone “hectoring shrill and her work self indulgent” she responded that
“her writing is intentional in its passionate, hysterical tone: “I am hysterical. I’m screaming from the bloody rooftops. And he and his smug little club are going ‘Shhhh… you’ll wake the neighbors!’

I heard her speak at my university the spring after Bush was elected for the second time. I found her not at all hysterical but responsible and wanting to shake the world awake. She is a harsh critic of the U.S. led invasion of Afghanistan in reaction to the September 11 attacks, Imperialism and the abuse of power, of Israel, and US military activity.

In 2002, she won the Lannan Foundation’s Cultural Freedom Award for her work “about civil societies that are adversely affected by the world’s most powerful governments and corporations,”

Roy was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize in May 2004 for her work in social campaigns and her advocacy of non-violence.

She was also awarded the Sahitya Akademi award, a national award from India’s Academy of Letters, for her collection of essays on contemporary issues, The Algebra of Infinite Justice, but she declined to accept it “in protest against the Indian Government toeing the US line by ‘violently and ruthlessly pursuing policies of brutalization of industrial workers, increasing militarization and economic neo-liberalization.”

You may read her work at a variety of places, listed below are just a few.

Exploratory Links:

Outlook India/Arndhati Roy, carries much of her shorter works with links to her longer works. It is sign up but free and worth it.
Salon piece from 1997
arundhati roy dot com, a great site where you can access some verbal essays, speeches/lectures and access a link to the WE documentary which visualizes the world of Arundhati Roy, specifically her famous Come September speech, where she spoke on such things as the war on terror, corporate globalization, justice and the growing civil unrest.

Links to some of her works:
9 IS NOT 11
Baby Bush Go Home (March 2006)
Book List

Arundhati Roy is said to be working on her 2nd non-fiction novel.

Previous women’s week posts:
Zainab Salbi
Dorothy Parker
Octavia Butler

Continuing on the theme of women, as a prelude to International Women’s Day, I’m going to stick with the authors and activists, or author/activists, as the aforementioned Dorothy Parker and Zainab Salbiof fit that category.

Today it’s Octavia Butler.

Butler was an American novelist, short story writer, and essayist, as well as a subliminal activist. Though she has a huge fan base still, and there was heartfelt op-ed memorializing when she died, much too early, from a fall and head injury in 2006, the man on the street is not all that familiar with her work. Her work doesn’t often make the book club discussions list of the garden party class. That is unfortunate because not only was she a multiple award winning science fiction writer, in a world where most science fiction was written by men, she was African American author in a world where African American authors were ignored.

Photo, NikolasCo’s .

Butler once called herself “comfortable asocial” ‘a pessimist if I’m not careful, a feminist, a Black, a former Baptist, an oil-and-water combination of ambition, laziness, insecurity, certainty and drive.” She was somewhat of a hermit, did not like to lecture — if she had to be up front she preferred to answers questions and wasn’t likely to be caught on a talk show. She was also a genius, writing social commentary on feminism, racism and society while masquerading it as science fiction, yet making it genuine, brilliant science fiction and splendid social commentary.

The purpose of these posts is not to give book reviews but to introduce or reintroduce people to some women. In the case of Olivia Butler I was lucky enough to have been introduced to her in tenth grade English in a month long series we did on Women Writers. It’s a rare thing though for Octavia Butler to be introduced in a high school class not particular to science fiction or African American writers, and that my friends is a shame. So for those who did miss out, check out her work.

Exploratory Links Octavia Butler:

NPR ESSAY – UN RACISM CONFERENCEBy Octavia E. Butler Reflections on Octavia Butler
official site Octavia Butler
Octavia Butler, 1947-2006: Sci-fi writer a gifted pioneer in white, male domain
Books by Octavia E. Butler
Oh, Octavia

previously on Women’s Week
Zainab Salbi
Dorothy Parker