April is Poetry Month. How do women poets see womanhood? The following poems are written by local women about women, and may indicate a poet’s perspective on our roles as women.

Catherine Bare describes her feelings in Strength: “The longer we live the more trials women survive. But the point is that we survive; we get stronger; and we help other women along in their lives. Perhaps the world is a little better for our struggles. And I think God is always there, cheering us on. Maybe He loves us more, if that is possible, every time we strive and succeed.”

Strength
We cannot rise again
     we think,
from pain of loss
failure’s disappointment
the disenchantment of rejection.

Cast down and hopeless!

Yet by grace of time,
     shadowed by Love
we look up
lift our hands
then stand and help another.

Heartened and renewed!

The sun warms to our smiles.
We laugh, and rainbows glisten.
We sing.  The angels rejoice.
Perchance we even dance.
God smiles at our joy!

                             Catherine Bare

Evelyn Asher was captivated by a statement Barbara Walters made on The View: “What would I do without my women friends?”

What Would I Do Without My Women Friends?
Who give each other confidence
Celebrate our passages
Remember the good times
Don’t keep scorecards
Know no distance.
 
When we can come as we are
Dress to the nines
And laugh
When we have
Nowhere to go.
 
Who urge each other to exercise
Write and rewrite
Live gregariously through each other’s
Activities
Dreams.
 
An unbroken circle of women friends
From Toledo to Seoul
From Boone
Deep Gap, Banner Elk, Trade
Zionville, Winston, and Columbia.
 
Who know each other’s past
And don’t
Don’t care
Celebrate today
Each other.
 
    Evelyn Asher

Frances VanLandingham thinks back at the difficult life her mother had as a mountain woman in the early 1900s. Her poem The Thief reflects these thoughts.
 
The Thief
A thief broke in and stole my life away.
He took the moments one by one,
And sacked them up into the days.
The stacks of days pile into years.
And then the decades loom.

This thief, he comes so stealthily.
He enters through the mind.
 Wait, be patient, not now,
Your time will come.
 Tools to break the lock of will.

He travels under aliases,
but Duty is his name.
Obedient daughter, faithful wife,
 devoted mother,
Labels on empty boxes left behind.

    Frances VanLandingham

June W. Bare is concerned that women have bought feminism at the expense of their privilege of womanhood. She uses the phrase from an old cigarette ad of the 60s to begin her thoughts.

We've come a long way, baby...
    or have we? Maybe
    we have flung some valuables
    beside the way,
    and turned our tables
    from a gentler, kindlier day.
Have we cast honor by the road?
Have we packed upon our backs
    a heavier load?
What we viewed as lacks
    our mothers valued best:
    a home and hearts to fill
    with love and skill...
    a place of woman's rest.
Have we really come a long way?
Perhaps it's no advance,
    but rather we have lost our chance
    and bought the slice
    at greater price
    than what we hoped to pay.

June W. Bare