THE DIFFICULT SECOND CHAPTER

girls, mothers and crones, friends, gossip and judgement

Before I begin, let me tell you about a workshop I'm running online in November.

BODIES, BAGGAGE & BELONGING

ZOOM WORKSHOP

SUNDAY NOVEMBER 23rd

1pm - 4pm

'I want a red dress.

I want it flimsy and cheap,

I want it too tight, I want to wear it

until someone tears it off me.

I want it sleeveless and backless,

this dress, so no one has to guess

what’s underneath.' - Kim Addonizio

The next poetry workshop I will be running is about the female form, what society expects us to look like, what we want to look like ,and what the fashion industry does to keep us buying.

We'll use poetry, images and discussion to produce new work and have the chance to share what we write.

This is a three hour workshop with plenty of time to write, time off-screen and time to chat.

The price of the workshop is £30 and I have two free places for unwaged , no questions asked , and two concession places of £20 each.

Because I know some of you don't like zoom workshops, I will also offer this as a workbook whereby you'll receive the prompts by email and get access to a recording of the workshop. £25

Let me know if you'd like a place and pay the appropriate amount to PayPal at yafflesnest@gmail.com or ask for bank deets xx

Tonight I'm in the bedroom of a pub B&B, while my husband is at a gig with his mates. I'm watching the new Victoria Beckham documentary. I remember years ago I didn't like Victoria. I had no reason for not liking her, I can't remember why I didn't. Perhaps because she was posh, haughty, privileged? But watching this documentary I realise that she's actually just a woman trying to live her life. And I know that her life is privileged and she's a million, a GAZILLION miles from most of us, but there is a kind of vulnerability about her, a need in her to please, that lots of us can recognise.

I'm at the point that I need finally to put my pen on the paper for the second chapter of this PhD. It's going to be about the stages in a woman's life : girlhood, childbearing and crone hood. The childbearing part will examine the pressure on us to be mothers, to be a certain type of mother, and to look at what happens if for some reason, we are not. The concept of crone hood is one that's already been questioned, because the concept of the crone is something that makes us think of the witch, the harridan, the wicked stepmother. I want to see if that image might be turned on its side, and looked at more positively.

#cover image by Jane Burn

Five years ago today was the launch of Bloody Amazing, an anthology of women's poems about menstruation and the menopause. It stemmed from a Facebook post I'd done that had sparked a huge conversation about women's bleeding and indeed , not bleeding. My friend Rebecca Bilkau suggested that the subject might make a great anthology, and so we made one. It was, I suppose , my first experience of women coming together to talk about something we just don't talk about. But on the whole, it came together well and with few fallings out. (There were some). It's still one of the things I'm the most proud of in my artistic life. The contributers to the book were at various stages of their menstruation, and the poems came together to bring a taboo subject to the forefront of people's conversation. I think things are better now, but not that much. I think that older women need to be seen as wise and wonderful, not ugly and useless. I want to reclaim the word crone, to show it as the positive stage of a woman's life, that it should be.

Of course because the subject of my PhD is The links and intersections between 16th century and 21st century women, I have to show those links and parallels and I want to use Elizabeth I as a ‘template’, really because her life at all those three stages was interesting and against what was expected of her. But she faced the same pressures, expectations and judgement as we all do, to a lesser or greater extent.

I want to show how women are women's greatest support and their biggest critics. We see other women being successful, we hate them, we see their success as a reflection of our own lack of success. Or we champion them and someone else brings them down. I do it myself. I'm aware of my quiet (and sometimes loud) criticism of other women and I look at the reason why, is it jealousy? Probably. I don't look at successful men and feel envious, I accept it. This has always happened, women at the Tudor court were their own biggest critics, their worst gossips, each others best champions.

So this is where I am, about to write about all that, in an academic way using academic words and academic articles to prove my point. My ‘Safety in Numbers’ anthology is in ths final stages of typesetting, and we'll soon start looking at designing the cover. I'm already proud of that project and the women who belong to it. I think the conversation within the book is a gentler one than ‘Bloody Amazing’, the poems pick up on something in the one before and go with it. Subjects come up later in the chain, and disappear and come up again, like a group of women chatting. It's been a massive support to me on this very lonely PhD journey, as if all 200+ women are holding me up. They have been fairly easy to deal with, we've had no big problems (as yet) and I've felt love from all of them. I hope that the next Substack I write is to tell you ‘Safety in Numbers' is a ‘thing’ and you'll be able to buy it.

It's raining on Victoria Beckham's fashion show, like, really raining. She's a human being watching her plans wash away. She's a woman who has had to work hard in the industry she's chosen. A woman who's faced judgement and gossip and criticism for her body, her lifestyle. Her smile. And I like her.

I don't charge for my Substack posts but if you want to give me a tip for a coffee (or towards Mounjaro 😂😂) you can by PayPal to yafflesnest@gmail.com