25 Feminist Poems to Provoke and Inspire Nasty Women
There’s something that makes verse (both written and spoken) a uniquely powerful vessel to express the multifaceted experiences of feminism. It’s easier to discover new feminist poetry and strong woman poems. In this collection of 25 feminist poems, you’ll find a voice for every perspective from the feminist movement. From feminist love poems to poems about women’s rights, you can read, watch, and be inspired by some of the greatest feminist poets working past and present.
“Lady Lazarus” by Sylvia Plath
Excerpt: I have done it again. One year in every ten I manage it— A sort of walking miracle, my skin Bright as a Nazi lampshade, My right foot A paperweight, My face a featureless, fine Jew linen.“Planetarium” by Adrienne Rich, read by astrophysicist Janna Levin
“Marrying the Hangman” by Margaret Atwood
Excerpt: She has been condemned to death by hanging. A man may escape this death by becoming the hangman, a woman by marrying the hangman. But at the present time there is no hangman; thus there is no escape. There is only a death, indefinitely postponed. This is not fantasy, it is history.“Spear” by Elizabeth Acevedo
“what they don’t want you to know” by Amanda Lovelace
“what they don’t want you to know” by Amanda Lovelace
“I Am A Nasty Woman” by Nina Donovan, read by Ashley Judd at the 2017 Women’s March on Washington
https://youtu.be/ffb_5X59_DA“Her Kind” by Anne Sexton
Excerpt: I have gone out, a possessed witch, haunting the black air, braver at night; dreaming evil, I have done my hitch over the plain houses, light by light: lonely thing, twelve-fingered, out of mind. A woman like that is not a woman, quite. I have been her kind.“All the Good Women are gone” by Susan Nguyen
Excerpt: Have you ever cried during an interview because you started talking about your family, or while serving tables in Virginia when a man’s hand lands on your ass. Have you ever had your boyfriend tell you he wanted to go celibate, which meant no kissing or holding hands, or ever been pulled over for tailgating a cop who called you stupid, to which you agreed.“Final Performance” by Cynthia Cruz
Excerpt: I crawl along the wet floor Of my mother’s childhood, A serpent, or a long-buried secret, In my mother’s bisque Chiffon gown with small stars“Still I rise” by Maya Angelou, read by Serena Williams
“Respect” by Melissa Studdard
Excerpt: Because her body is winter inside a cave because someone built fire there and forgot to put it out because bedtime is a castle she’s building inside herself with a moat and portcullis and buckets full of mist“Wade in the Water” by Tracy K. Smith
Excerpt: for the Geechee Gullah Ring Shouters One of the women greeted me. I love you, she said. She didn’t Know me, but I believed her, And a terrible new ache Rolled over in my chest, Like in a room where the drapes Have been swept back. I love you, I love you, as she continued Down the hall past other strangers, Each feeling pierced suddenly By pillars of heavy light.“My Mother Was a Freedom Fighter” by Aja Monet
“A Woman Speaks” by Audre Lorde
Excerpt: Moon marked and touched by sun my magic is unwritten but when the sea turns back it will leave my shape behind.“Fire” by Nikita Gill
“Fire” by Nikita Gill
“Pocket-Sized Feminism” by Blythe Baird
“Poet as Housewife” by Elisabeth Eybers
Excerpt: Always a broom leaned against a wall, meals never on time, if they come at all. Days without dates through which she moves empty and stubborn, slightly confused. Ironing hung dejectedly over a chair, gestures that come from who-knows-where.“The Period Poem” by Dominique Christina
“They Shut Me Up in Prose— (445)” by Emily Dickinson
Excerpt: They shut me up in Prose— As when a little Girl They put me in the Closet— Because they liked me “still”—“what’s the greatest lesson a woman should learn?” by Rupi Kaur
“what’s the greatest lesson a woman should learn?” by Rupi Kaur
