The poems in our ongoing “Liberating Words” series were written in an interdisciplinary course for high school juniors at The Winsor School, an all-girls school in Boston, Mass. The course, “The Personal Is Political: An Interdisciplinary Look at Feminism,” is co-taught by Libby Parsley, a History teacher, and Susanna Ryan, an English teacher. The second unit of the course focuses on the history and literature of second-wave feminism—the women’s liberation movement of the 1960’s and 70’s. Students read a compilation of poems by women writers from that period and then wrote their own poems; the assignment asked them to represent an issue or problem they see as central to 21st-century women’s experience through the very personal genre of poetry.
Myself
by Maggie Donovan
Hot
Cute
Short
Tall
Fat
Skinny
Curvy
Not for all
Is this all you see
When your eyes happen to fall on me?
My smile
My eyes
My hands
My feet
My attitude
My talents
My fears
My mood
There is more than what you first see
So take the time to notice them or don’t look at me.
Maggie Donovan is a junior at the Winsor School in Boston.
