Over the last decade I've written lyrical poems, political poems, sometimes angry poems, loving poems and increasingly poems that have come out of fear for the non-human living world which I name in my poems folder as 'something about species'. I've also developed a bit of an obsession with the number of different words that have over time described women of all ages and so I seem to have swapped another obsession, collecting stones, with collecting these words and in this latest manifestation of my list, acronyms too. Two postcards later and I'm wondering if this expanded list will actually be legible unless I stretch its borders. The original words for women was published in Binders Full of Women which you can find more about on the US Poetry Foundation website. It was a selection of poems collated in response to a comment by US presidential contender Mitt Romney in 2012. And this morning, in The Observer, I read an urgent comment piece by Carole Cadwalladr on misogyny in American politics. "Misogyny is a dirty bomb in the heart of our information system," she writes. And since I'd been revamping WORDS FOR WOMEN anyway after my daughter asked for the first, and second versions, to give to a friend, I thought it's time for a third outing. This title just won't lie down. And the list isn't by any means comprehensive. Nor is it perfectly alphabetical. I've amended some of the lists to add a bit of rhythm. It's a work in progress. I remember showing my first idea to Jane Fordham and the late Matthew Miller, then co-director of Fabrica gallery in Brighton. I published it in Woman's Head as Jug as a block of text, merging the words so they weren't immediately identifiable. I like that idea, still, so this version may yet change again.....
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