They Can Have Their Cake, and Eat it, Too

For the second half of National Poetry Month 2017, 

Malvina will Sing It, and I'll write a poem in response.

One of the strongest unifying topics in Malvina Reynolds' songs is politics and protest. The next few days will feature songs written in the 1960's and 1970's, but which are fresh and topical today.

Let Them Eat Cake was recorded live in concert, November 1972.




They Can Have Their Cake, and Eat it, Too

They sugar coat the truth for us,
fake the daily news,
make us look the other way.
What could they possibly lose?

They divert to keep the facts at bay,
disguise false validations,
sweeten fibs with taradiddles,
no need for vindication.

“What could we possibly lose?” they ask,
on the brink of a nuclear war.
They’re blind to even the simplest truths,
and deaf to our uproar.


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2017

Holes

For the second half of National Poetry Month 2017, 

Malvina will Sing It, and I'll write a poem in response.

One of the strongest unifying topics in Malvina Reynolds' songs is politics and protest. The next few days will feature songs written in the 1960's and 1970's, but which are fresh and topical today.

The World in Their Pocket was recorded live in concert by KQED in 1967.

Holes

They say the world is richer,
With jobs and giant bankrolls.
But their logic’s got a hole.

They say we’ll build the pipeline,
Bother with leaks and spills later.
But their logic’s got a crater.

They say the world is safe,
In their constant Twitter spasms.
But their logic’s got a chasm.

When crater, hole and chasm
Become a vast abyss,
They’ll say, “Oops, we were remiss…”

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2017

What is Feminism?

What is Feminism?

Some women
have the luxury of
joining a cause.
Fighting for equal rights
and equal pay.
Finding their voices,
expressing their true identities.

Other women
have the necessity of
work.
Finding the work
and doing the work.
Keeping their families fed,
running the businesses.


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2017





"My mother came from a long line of women who worked outside the home. Her grandmother ran a deli while her husband read Torah. Her own mother and father ran a naval tailor shop. When I was in the fifth grade, my mother’s father died, and she and my father and grandmother ran the shop together."

http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/biographies/malvina-reynolds/

I Don't Mind Failing

Language alert: if watching the video with children, be prepared to hit the mute button at :33-:38 and 4:15-4:20. Also, apologies (and gratitude) to William Carlos Williams.

This is Just to Say 

I have failed
the test
that measures
my worth

and which
you were probably
planning to use
to pigeonhole me

Forgive me
I refuse your labels
I am deliciously
worthy and capable


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2017





Sing It, Malvina!

April 1 -- Working for Change
April 2 -- A Lifetime Filled With Change
April 3 -- Red
April 4 -- Little Red Hen
April 5 -- Childhood Dreams
April 6 -- Lonely Child
April 7 -- Quiet

April 8 -- Storyteller

April 9 -- Troublemaker

April 10 -- Girl Power

April 11 -- Choices

April 12 -- My Gal, Mother Nature

April 13 -- Not a Joke

April 14 -- I Don't Mind Failing

Dori has the Poetry Friday Roundup this week at Dori Reads.

Not a Joke

Not a Joke

Isn’t it funny
(not a joke
no humor
no puns)
Isn’t it funny
how war creates a necessity
that strips away all the labels
previously preventing a person’s
life work?

Isn’t it funny
(not a joke
no humor
no puns)
Isn’t it funny
how the devastation of war
creates industries
and builds an economy out of
destruction?

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2017




“My mother was writing her dissertation when I was little and got her Ph.D. in 1939. But it was the middle of the Depression; she was Jewish, a socialist, and a woman; and she couldn’t get a job teaching. But when the Second World War broke out, she got a job on an assembly line in a bomb factory, and Bud went to work as a carpenter in a shipyard.”

http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/biographies/malvina-reynolds/

My Gal, Mother Nature

“...it was while doing graduate work in English there (University of California Berkeley) that she did some student teaching. She used pop songs to teach her high school students about rhyme scheme and meter, as they were not poetry readers."

http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/biographies/malvina-reynolds/

Malvina Reynolds would have been at Berkeley in the 1920's, and "Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue" was a popular song then. Perhaps it was one she used to teach about rhyme scheme and meter.

Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue
Words: Sam M. Lewis and Joseph Widow Young; Music: Ray Henderson (1925)

Five foot two, eyes of blue,
but oh, what those five foot could do:
has anybody seen my gal?

Turned-up nose, turned-down hose
Flapper? Yes sir, one of those
Has anybody seen my gal?

Now, if you run into
a five-foot-two
covered with fur,
Diamond rings,
and all those things,
Bet your life it isn't her

But could she love, could she woo!
Could she, could she, could she coo!
Has anybody seen my gal?




My Gal, Mother Nature

Birds and bees, rocks and trees
Oh the breeze and green green leaves
Has anybody seen my gal?

Skies of blue, rivers too
Nature? Yes we need her hues
Has anybody seen my gal?

Now if the skies are hazed
Parks are paved
Trash everywhere,
Species dead
Sewage spread
Bet your life there’s no clean air

The temps are high, could she die?
Could she, could she, could she die?
Has anybody seen my gal?

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2017

Choices

Choices

Even the right man
Must wait for the right time
Because mother is right
That “career first” is the right path.

But when you're on the left path
Your heart keeps looking for the right man
You left behind
For all the right reasons


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2017






“It was while she was in high school that Malvina first met William “Bud” Reynolds, at a socialist dance. He was a merchant seaman, seven years older, handsome, and even more shy than she. He was self-educated, having left school after the eighth grade. They read poetry to each other in Golden Gate Park, but when he proposed, she refused. Encouraged by her mother, she had her sights set on college and a career.

She married someone else, and so did Bud. He ran for governor of Michigan on the Socialist ticket, with the slogan, “You provide the evictions, we’ll provide the riots!” They found each other again after she was divorced, and this time she said yes.”

http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/biographies/malvina-reynolds/

Girl Power

GIRL POWER

Gentle and meek are things of the past.
I am
Ready to take on the world. To
Lead,
Persist, and
Open doors
With my own talents, my own skills, and my own
Expertise. World, are you
Ready for me?

©Mary Lee Hahn

Troublemaker

Troublemaker
(Ever so slightly to the tune of "Little Boxes")

When we want
What they’ve got
And we ask for it
In the right ways
And the logic’s there
And the signatures
And they still tell us NO

Then we don’t stop
And we’re not quiet
And we make them
Pay attention now
To the voices
Of the people
Who pursue what they’re due.


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2017

"I had first come to the attention of the principal’s office with a premature women’s liberation movement on the school grounds. At noon, the boys could leave the grounds to play around on the streets and to get hot dogs, hamburgers, coffee, and pop at the little store across the street. I circulated a petition that the girls be allowed out of the yard at noon also. The answer was no. It wasn’t proper for girls to be on the street. [The girls then asked that the boys be restricted, and were told] if the school tried to restrict the boys they’d just climb the fence. Probably in the same situation now, the girls would climb the fence. Then, nothing happened except that quiet, shy me was fingered as a troublemaker."

http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/biographies/malvina-reynolds/

Storyteller

Storyteller

Storyteller, storyteller
come on out.
Tell us a story.
What’s it about?
Pirates or dragons,
a farm or a zoo?
Zebras? Lions?
Kangaroo?

Storyteller, storyteller
spin us a yarn.
Make it a good one,
one that will charm.
One full of laughter,
or one full of fear--
no matter what you tell
all of us will cheer!

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2017

"The times I have been happiest were the rare times when I was one of a gang….I had a kind of gang when we lived on Buchanan Street [in San Francisco]. I must have been seven or eight. We would sit in the light of the street lamp in the evening on the high wooden flight of stairs, a dozen of us, and while the bigger boys played “One Foot Off the Gutter,” I would make up long stories to tell the others. I don’t remember what the stories were about, but they must have been interesting; I can remember the young voices in the evening, calling me to come out."

http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/biographies/malvina-reynolds/