Poetic HERstory
March was Women’s History Month, and April is National Poetry Month. Women’s voices, spoken or on paper, have not always been welcome. Women’s letters provide a rich herstory to the history we often learn in school. We have told the truth but had to tell it slant, as Emily Dickinson would say. Poetry often points to something difficult to name--for social reasons, soul survival, and evolutionary necessity.
Phillis Wheatley. Lucy Terry. Emily Dickinson. Achsa Sprague. The Grimke sisters. Maya Angelou, Lucille Clifton. Mary Oliver. Joy Harjo. Naomi Shihab Nye. Amanda Gorman. These women and many others speak in print and voice about social justice from the mid-eighteenth century to the present day. They speak as slaves, abolitionists, spiritualists, naturalists, professors, laureates, and inaugural poets. They speak to our hearts and minds.
Every year at the beginning of April, the Vermont Historical Society convenes a statewide “History Day” for middle and high school students. This year’s theme was “Communication in History: The Key to Understanding.” I sponsor The Women’s History Award in memory of my mother, Helen Vrooman Passmore, awarded by the judges to the best individual or group student project on women in history.
Mom did not write poetry, but she inspired me to love words. Last November, I was on Zoom with a small group of friends. We took five minutes to write in silent reflection on Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer’s poem, “Dear America.”
This is what I wrote:
Dear America,
I am your daughter
finding and claiming
my voice
without hiding
behind my father’s
coattails.
My words seed
an ancient wish
in new possibilities
wondering
where, when, and in whom
they will germinate.
Keep me in wonder, not fear.
Love, Trish
Women don’t speak just to themselves. They speak to engage the world. Share this with a young person in honor of the poems they are. Listen. May their voices be heard.