Last weekend, I got the chance to be in the presence of two
women wordsmiths that I greatly admire.
On Friday, I went to see Ani DiFranco play a show in
Orlando. I’ve seen her perform before, a few years ago, but I’ll jump at the
chance to see her play any day of the year. She’s got a stage presence that’s electric,
and everything about her shouts “POWER!”
Midway through the show, she says, “You didn’t know you
walked into a radical feminist poetry night, did ya?” And then she gave one of
her great laughs. But it took her saying it to make me realize that this is poetry, and she is one of our
generation’s greatest troubadours.
On Saturday, I spent the afternoon in a yoga studio with Jen
Pastiloff and 40 other women. Wielding journals and yoga mats, we took off on a
three-hour journey, stopping in the middle of a plank to pick up our pen and
write furiously for a few minutes. And then it was back to sun salutations.
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| Photo Credit |
Ani DiFranco has been making and sharing her music since the
90’s. She started her own record label, Righteous Babe, at the age of 18, she’s put out over 20
albums and she’s not stopping any time soon.
Jen Pastiloff is the creator of an online magazine, TheManifest-Station, and she’s amassed a cult following on social media. She’s
published many pieces of honest writing all over the web, and she’s in the
process of writing a book for teenage girls.
I recently read this
interview with Isabelle Allende, a writer that I admire very much. In it, she
says, “There is no
message. I think that fiction should not be trying to give messages. Just tell
a story. Some people connect with a story and may find between the lines
something that might be useful to him or her, but that's not the intention of
the author, I think. At least not mine.”
Ani and Jen definitely have a message and they use their writing
to share it. Ani speaks the truth about fossil fuels, racial politics, gun
violence, climate change, violence against women, homophobia, poverty, reproductive rights, among other social issues. She uses her songs to
encourage people to vote and think deeply about the democrazy we are a part of.
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| Jen and I after her workshop |
Maybe that’s the difference between fiction and nonfiction.
Both have messages to share with their readers, but nonfiction is more transparent
about it.
Either way, I am grateful for the work that these women use the written word to undo patriarchy and restore balance—emotional, social, ecological, spiritual—on
this crazy beautiful planet we all share.
