COLLEGE FEMINISMS: POETRY BY WAFA SIMPORE

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Step by step is an understatement of the

Complexity

Confusion

Exhaustion

That comes along with this work,

Deconstruction

Reconstruction so that many of us can carry on

Carry onto a place of understanding

Willingness

Strength

 

Until the lion has a historian, the hunter will always be the hero.

– African Proverb

 

Histories

Histories is where we are grounded

To carry on the stepping stone to one after another

And another so we see we aren’t alone

 

Next comes the location

The identity

That we experience

Share

Unwind to others

The confusion of thoughts that are wrapped around

The history that we carry on our backs

Location

Locate ourselves in the world that puts the burden

We live in everyday without any

Relentless

Break—

To an understanding of our own

Locate the connections that we share in society

So we can catch a ride on the continuous waves that will be

Never-ending

 

Wave to the others that we want to join

Because that’s how we grow

Break from the identity

From the privilege

From the “us”

From the “them”

To the we

The collective

 

The confrontation of one’s own personal privilege only produces resistance or discomfort if one identifies with or is attached in some way to that privilege.

– Leela Fernandes, Transforming Feminist Practice, Pg. 29

 

To push back through these struggles that makes it so hard

To think clearly

Rationally

Without any outside influences

Or violence

No matter the circumstances that might push you

Toward the edge

 

I want to ask how feminist approaches to questions of social justice would change if the existing dichotomy between the material/ political/ social and the spiritual realms were to be set aside.

-Leela Fernandes, Transforming Feminist Practice, Pg. 10

 

While streets are swept clean from the broken glass

And the date of April 19^th and beyond are remembered

In the hearts of people from the Washington area

The contradictions

Ring in their ears

Just like Hooks

Fernandes

Wittig

Crenshaw

Anzaldúa

All ring in mine to show me a strong path to follow

Still passing on the stepping stone

To find

Myself

 

The kind of transformation that is needed now will require a fire burning from our deepest sources of spiritual strength and knowledge.

-Leela Fernandes, Transforming Feminist Practice, Pg. 22

 

This spirituality for social change, spirituality that recognizes the many differences among us yet insists on our commonalities and uses these commonalities as catalysts for transformation.

-AnaLouise Keating, “Charting Pathways, Making Thresholds…A Warning,” Pg. 18

 

Feminist theory can lead to many paths in the

World

Society

Community we live in

Along with intersections at every corner

But the crossroads we meet

Can always be drawn

And redrawn

When we are ready to accept a transformation

A spirituality

A light to pull from

 

For from a spiritualized perspective, transformation occurs through the practice itself rather than in the visible or material outcome of the practice.

-Leela Fernandes, Transforming Feminist Practice, Pg. 119

 

The material might be the graspable goal

Along the road we all travel upon

But only Fernandes

Can explain the goal almost every

Feminist

Theory

Individual struggling should strive to be

 

What then is the direction of spiritual revolution? I believe that the role of the spiritual revolutionary can never be predetermined or defined to fit a pre-given model. It will always be contingent on one’s choices and contextual circumstances and on the element of the unknowable. The spiritual revolutionary is no more than a worker who knows that utopias are real and who, with this knowledge, cannot live but to manifest a world in this image.

-Leela Fernandes, Transforming Feminist Practice, Pg.123

 

 

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Wafa Simpore is a Women’s, Gender & Sexualities Studies major at the University of Connecticut. Currently a Senior at UConn, Wafa hopes to go on to a Master’s program in Social Work. Being an advocate for women’s issues and equality for all has been a central focus of her work.  Such a focus has helped Wafa find a place in society that challenges normative thought processes and has forged a way for her to step outside of her comfort zone.  Wafa hopes to bring her feminist insights and work, and all its difficulties, to where ever she might end up in life–particularly to strengthen her social worker’s career.