One of the things about writing poems is to take risk or to use unlikely sources. On my birthday I share this poem selected by The AshberyHomeSchool organized by Adam Fitzgerald and Emily Skillings. Many years ago, I took Thulani Davis to see Belle Du Jour for her birthday. We felt oh so sophisticated. That seems like a century ago and indeed it was in the last century of the last millennium. Years later I thought about the film, but also more about what is marriage since it has been on everyone’s mind-gay marriage; divorce rates; why get married; why men are happier married, etc. etc. etc. I am not married, but probably would have made an interesting wife had I been married. But who knows. I do not. But the film gave a look at how marriage represses women. And the ways in which she “liberates” or does not “liberate” herself is at the heart of the film. Of course it’s a film by the great Spanish director Bunel and given his misogyny, the liberation focuses on her use of sex. Of course women liberate ourselves in a range of ways and that is a good thing. We need more liberty. We need to think about what marriage or not marriage is. We need to find language that allows our full selves to be claimed by our full selves. As a poet who is living her life as best she can, I know that it is not easy to live one’s full life. But I urged each of us to do so as best we can.
At MOMA, with Jacob Lawrence catalog, January 2015
http://ashberyhomeschool.org/gallery/patricia-spears-jones/