Tag Archives: poem

Well…

Posted on by Alexandra Erin

…I’m keeping up my streak of blogging about every two weeks or so. We’ll see if I can improve on that in the coming days.

It feels a little weird to be talking business at this moment in history, but I really do need to blog more often, and to keep up my other professional obligations.

This week I put in my party proposal for WisCon and my proposal for a trans/genderqueer reading group. Yesterday I had my best writing day in a while – I wrote a very short poem (short enough to fit in a single tweet, even!) as a warm-up, and then a 3,500 word short story, and then another story in the form of a 900 word monologue or prose poem, I’m still not sure how I’d best classify it.

The poem and the poetic monologue were written to use as reading material during my nearly weekly appearance at The Flying Camel. Last week I started doing a virtual reading on Twitter’s Periscope service around midnight on the night of the open mic night. I’d planned to do the same last night, but with the news breaking out of New Zealand I didn’t quite have the right mindset for a public performance and I decided to spend my time reporting Islamophobic tweets on Twitter. Weirdly, all the accounts I found that were spreading hatred of Muslims last night were also engaged in anti-Semitism, homophobia, and racism. Go figure.

Anyway. I’ve got a social engagement for the middle part of the day, and after that I’m going to post the two shorter works to my Patreon. The longer one will be up probably next week. When I write a story, particularly one that’s over 1,000 words, I think of it as having three stages of doneness: complete is when the whole story is there on the page. Finished is when I’m gone over the rough bits. Polished is when I’ve looked at the finished story, and often slept on it, and figured out all the ways to really make it sparkle. I wrote a complete story yesterday in about an hour, but it’s not finished and it’s not polished.

If I’m stuck on what to blog about, I might talk about the story some more, because I wrote it as a way to sort of get over some mental hurdles that have been holding me back in some of my longer ongoing writing projects.

That Never Happened: Notes on a Post about Feminism (Poem)

Posted on by Alexandra Erin

Case in point what I was talking about before, re: adequacy; I wrote this poem a month ago and meant to post it here and then link it on my Patreon, but every time I set out to do it, I found myself paralyzed with indecision. I consistently think it’s one of the better and more important things I’ve written, right up until it comes time to tell someone about it.

The poem was directly inspired by a specific incident that I’ve already actually forgotten because the sort of incident that inspired it happens constantly. The title is a sort of reference to another observation on the phenomenon, Helen Lewis’s observation that “Comments on any article about feminism justify feminism.” I’m not a particular fan of Helen Lewis, but this sentiment is repeated and paraphrased so many times without attribution—or attributing it to a man who happened to quote her, such as Wil Wheaton—that I felt it necessary to point out who codified the sentiment in this form.

Anyway, poem:

THAT NEVER HAPPENED: NOTES ON A POST ABOUT FEMINISM
by Alexandra Erin

That never happened, you’re making it up,

but you need to realize it happens to men, too,

and it was obviously a joke when it happened.

Anyway, everyone does it sometimes, but not all men.

You feminists generalize everything.

It hurts my feelings when you’re so sensitive.

Nothing in life is more important than free speech,

so just shut up about this social justice nonsense.

We don’t care about race or gender or anything else,

we’re all just people here, just human beings,

so if anyone gives you trouble for who you are

it’s your fault for letting them find out.

You will never find a more welcoming community,

but you can’t expect to just walk in here like that.

Gaming has never been a boys’ club,

but why are girls getting into it now?

The corrupt media narrative ignores our wonderful diversity.

Feminists won’t understand that we are not their shield,

but of course white men are catered to, we’re the majority.

You feminists act like men are so dangerous,

but you’re waving raw meat in front of a wild dog

and whose fault is it if you leave your door unlocked?

I resent the implication that I can’t be trusted.

It’s just a compliment, just a drink, just being friendly,

not everyone means something by everything,

not everyone is angling for something in return,

and besides, fake geek girls are taking over

and pretending to like our things

to get compliments

and drinks

and stuff

and never have to give a single thing up in return,

and how is that fair?

You females give so many mixed signals.

You’re so contradictory, I swear,

it’s like you’re different people.

I should just give up on you.

I should just leave you all alone.

But I won’t fight hate with hate.

I will be the bigger man.

I will stay here and I will tell you

every single thing you ever got wrong

until you know better, until you see.

Because I’m a nice guy.

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