art as art as m aaccttiivviissm all female menu december 2020
“The poems that stay with me on my bookshelf and in memory are the ones that shake up my understanding of the world. The poems I cling to and teach are the ones that inform and challenge me. Poetry is activism because, line by line, it contains the potential to ask difficult questions, to participate in literary spaces, to push past discomfort, and to build worlds where possibilities drive us. People say they are often moved, held, or taken by poems – and aren’t those actions the basis of activism? Poetry, this way, is a movement.” janice lobo sapigao
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We are in a moment of simultaneous mourning and celebration, of protest and potential. For some, this allows artistic energies to expand; but for others, it can feel challenging to keep creating when there is so much else to give attention to. While the page may not feel like a place to protest, we believe it is. In this moment of uprisings, how is activism in conversations with your artistic flow? How does justice appear in your work when it is noticeably absent in the world? How is your art an act of preservation, of abolition, of protest, of solace? The following pieces explore the relationship between art, activism, and protest. This political moment is asking us to reimagine our world, and we invited our submitters to do the same with their art. We asked, what have you been creating in the days, weeks, and months that have been defined by political protest?
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We’d like to offer a general content warning for the pieces in this issue. This edition may contain content that upsets some readers. This includes prose and poetry that deals with tackling racist ideologies and remarks, identity erasure, governmental and societal oppression, United States immigration / ICE, and police brutality.
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all female menu the audacity to paint when immigrant children remain in cages shon mapp In the living room of our altbau flat, I stand a soundless slab of solid granite, flanked by too many white walls, while she wildly gesticulates her disappointment. “Where were you?” she asked. “I was where I am now, here. Creating.” She peeled away her dark layers in front of the closet and walked towards the kitchen. The rest of the night was spent apart in a slow silent truce. An unlikely serenity hung in the air following our non-argument, disrupted only by her phone calls with the other protest organizers. After midnight, when I could no longer hear her soles slide across the honey wood floors, I stood from my squatted position to study the hundreds of tiny painted cages that covered three quarters of the enormous canvas. I could hear her soft breath as I entered the room and stood bedside for a few moments, waiting for the dark adaptation to reveal her still silhouette under the duvet. In seconds, her legs appeared in a forward slash across the queen mattress. I tiptoed from the puddle of paint speckled clothing and slid into bed. My legs snaked between hers as I inched closer until our breasts touched. “Did you finish? She mumbled. “No. But, I’m tired,” I replied. “Yeah. Me too.” 3
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aqui, pensando rosana hurtado klaus
Why do I get so bothered, So mad at seeing these white girls turn themselves brown? Why do I get so bothered, So mad to see them lamely moving to cumbias And why do I get so bothered, So mad to hear them or see them write in Spanish? Because this was a language I was expected to maintain, But also a language I was rejected from. Because I was a confused little mixed girl Who never got the luxury of deciding it was cute enough, Or interesting enough To add this new persona to my identity. Because for me, It was always a struggle And continues to be a struggle. Never ending. And because they can speak our language, And eat our food, And dance to our music, But they will never feel the pain that is so rudimentary to our being. While they enjoy their parents’ vacation homes in Mexico, My family struggles to rebuild their scrap metal roof. And while they shop for cute huaraches and colorful earrings, We send back whatever money we can for our family to get medicine. And we send old clothes to make sure they have things that will fit our growing cousins.
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And here, While they enjoy spending money on their self-tanning or whatever the fuck they do, I worry about getting a good paying job to help my mom Who makes cents to their dollars. And while they dream of all the luxurious possibilities of their privileged futures, I worry about that of my tĂas, My abuelitos, My primos, My mom. So it angers me to see them flaunt my culture That I have hated, and been confused about, But always loved. And it angers me to see them visit every year a place where I cannot For the sake of my family’s safety. But I understand that my heart is this big Because I was born out of pain and suffering, not to keep the pain and suffering going, But to defeat it. And I know that this pain that I despise so much, That fuels my anger and jealousy only keeps me closer to my roots and strengthens my heart. And I breathe And I come to terms with it. And I turn it into pride.
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i am not the mediator zara r. ahmed
only a fool would think this war has not wounded me, an inadvertent casualty: heart bruised like a browned peach. gone is the pliability, the respectability, the rose flower in the palm of the oppressor. this cataclysm has stripped me of my petals, leaving but an array of thorns for the taking.
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reckoning rachel werner
Before I accepted the world left bruises. I was taught to pretend; To smile; To thank— Our daily persecutors. ….At school. …On the train. …In meetings. …Before an altar. Abuse is normative as a woman. Who’s also brown. And so tired of looking for a way out, —the best distraction— Is being an instrument others can use. Until you see another Black neck being snapped on the news. Realizing the next could be you, —and already is. A truth I always knew. —but ignored. Preferring attention as protection against the hell raging within. His murder a siren for me too. As piles of bodies in plain view, grew in mass graves, for our disposable kin.
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sometimes i feel i am a shell living inside another woman’s skin maria s. picone
she, like a big Labrador, suburban have-to-have, grew up there, white name stitched on her leash and collar, papers in a manila folder after they background-checked her new mom and dad. fixed her. forever home she couldn’t choose stamped on her dog tags, intimate stranger to universal-American white life. Maria Picone, oppressively Italian— insists that they say, Pih co ni and not Pick cone. father had a store: Pic One. Buzzy WASPs replace this “ne” with a NEIGH like a horse saying, NAY—discomfort loud among them, bronzed plastic women awash with white insights, Barbies wined out in the writing workshop waiting for her to represent her tribe of purported Labradors and -doodles talked over and over but friends, Maria S. Picone doesn’t fit in the utensil drawer with those silverware gals who spent the pandemic baking; the Pottery Barn catalogue carries no chopsticks. Maria S. Picone doesn’t need your surprised eyebrows punctuating the more perfect union of her name and her person— can’t be helped by obedience school; she would sooner hurl a dragon firecracker at your head than invite you over for an inspiring virtual conversation on enjambment, erasure. a hands-on experience with Asian silence.
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[moment of respect] talk over and over this idea that I stole an imaginary woman’s name to rubber stamp a blanched veneer on my gold skinned body. that she not I am the shell reclaimed from exotic shores, bleaching out inconvenient remnants of color. we are forever stealing each other’s bones. sending each other to the doghouse. she, like a real American, might buy a lucky cat while she splits herself into tree pose because she might realize that the origin story of Maria S. Picone is not hers to choose, assume, scribble out, white out
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this self evident truth lexi locket I have always been black. Growing up in Wisconsin I didn’t know I was different until somebody told me, then immediately followed it up with, but you’re not really black since you’re mixed. Growing up in Wisconsin I didn’t know I was different. I was told I was pretty for a black girl and they followed it up with, but you’re not really black since you’re mixed and I was unsure why their compliments felt more like consolation. I was told I was pretty for a black girl and they were surprised when I didn’t applaud their generosity and I was unsure why. Their compliments felt more like consolation for daring to be seen at all. I demanded more and they were surprised when I didn’t applaud their generosity. They reminded me Look how far we’ve come. Reprimanded me for daring to be seen at all. I demanded more and they were quick to claim colorblindness, all lives matter, they reminded me Look how far we’ve come. Reprimanded me for seeking safety to walk, breathe, or sleep. All were quick to claim colorblindness. All lives matter was the chorus that met my ears. Calling me daring simply for seeking safety to walk, breathe, or sleep. All I wanted was to move quietly through the streets, not where a mother’s wailing was the chorus that met my ears. Calling me daring simply to believe all lives matter could include black lives like me. What I wanted was to move quietly through the streets, not where a mother’s wailing was using up the remainder of her child’s breath. It seems impossible to believe all lives matter could include black lives like me. What evidence do I have to support that, when people see a mother was using up the remainder of her child’s breath. It seems impossible that we have always been able to rise above and endure despite the evidence. Do I have to support that? When people see a mother whose childs’ name is trending and try to explain it away and remind us
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that we have always been able to rise above and endure despite the color-coded obstacles that have been built in our way. Do you know whose childs’ name is trending? And try to explain it away and remind us that imitation is the highest form of flattery. Forget about the color-coded obstacles that have been built in our way. Do you know we only want the parts of you that can be packaged and consumed? That imitation is the highest form of flattery? Forget about the relief when grace lets the police car pass by, we only want the parts of you that can be packaged and consumed. But I refuse to believe I should be grateful for relief when grace lets the police car pass by, as if that was the freedom my ancestors were striving for. But I refuse to believe I should be grateful. For I can see a world where I am allowed to be me as if that was the freedom my ancestors were striving for, no need to qualify or quantify the roots of my identity. I can see a world where I am allowed to be me and in it I am able to be everything. No need to qualify or quantify the roots of my identity. There is a world we can reach where there is always enough air for everyone and in it I am able to be everything. Each time I envision it, it shakes and shifts at the the idea there is a world we can reach where there is always enough air for everyone. I have to believe in this better life, and in it each time I envision it, it shakes and shifts at the the idea of all the different me’s I could be with so much possibility. I have to believe in this better life, and in it I have always been black.
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dove crime shayna gee trigger warning: murder, death
Tou Thao, a Hmong-American officer charged with aiding and abetting the murder of George Floyd has six complaints filed against him prior to 2020’s event. In 2014, a Black man was beaten by Thao and another officer just four blocks from where Floyd was murdered.
Behind the yellow crime scene detectives’ rules unknown the trickiest scheme archived no footage horrid enough no fluff and feathers or fluids no DNA but a culprit ghost Officer Thao, you stood there while your boys in blue murdered an innocent Black man They said your case was different because you were on crowd control What does it mean to have our sharp eyes? Are we sinless and immune? we’re alerted miles away this time, your wings dampened thick with blood
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the song of canaan edith knight
Where is the wrath of the oppressor? Where are they who injured, snared, and captured us. Where is the rod of the tormentor? Where are they who flogged, pierced and clobbered us. Where are they who like pottery- mercilessly shattered us! like chalkstone-mercilessly crushed us! while we cried, gasped and panted like women in childbirth. Where, Are they who lifted clubs against our members, on our head and in our mouth. pounded us back to sender, the boots of the boys in blue. Like boiling Sulphur- our tears stream. In the streets it’s all a blast, raging fury- rampant fire. The city turns to crust, like rubble-goes down with us.
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Are our oppressors these Who now mumble out their speech from the dust where they lay? Licking the dust at our feet dreading, weeping and begging us. Are our tormentors these Who shroud as we blaze like flaming fire? Begging us to stop They are! They are! We won’t! We won’t!
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all female menu revolutionary transformation lineadeluz *the following is all one piece
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art as activism
from the book of light noeme grace c. tabor-farjani I. The moonlight spreads in her bed like a luminous linen where hopes write themselves on water. The readers watch in vigil for rising tides, for surge of tokens, for the arrangement of words to pocket in the phrases, of phases of the moon in the mirror for tomorrow’s prophecies.
II. A book of ego Or a wrestling match Between darkness and light But who is light? Is it the one that drives evil away? One that sends your fears Melting in its heat? But you are not light, Only mere reflection. Write, book of shadows That shine on their own In their solitude The solace found From twinkle of stars. Again, not light.
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III. My most ancient of dreams, some prancing in the skies, the curling wavelike rolls in the stomach in every descent and ascent similar to desires. Am I not divinely blessed with more than five senses? A thousand sins and redemptions. Is this some call a Curse? To see gothic shadows, curves of evil on bathroom tiles, terror from the twinkle in his eyes. I wince at the clanging of dishes he soaps. I yearn for some clean, quiet time of fresh sheets and bright light, washed face on crisp linen. I see the popping out of cherry blossoms on the curtain, the silky pattern of peacock leaves, the gliding of pen on paper like sweet, smooth, warm golden turmeric in the mouth. Should I not call this Grace? Some fill for meandering vessels, misgivings tucked, tight within tortuous crevices reserved for its own to see my own faults, the vile sparkle in his eyes that are my monsters checking themselves out in that mirror. I bed them, cradle them under the blanket while he does the chores. Tell me once more, are these blessings, not curse?
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IV. you settle in movements of muse endless chores backdropped with her choir
you cannot quite choose
which way to take
to continue sweeping the floor
or run to your notes already crafting while hands clean she taunts you with images blurring the floor that needs mopping the silence
the jazz carols
the hollow spaces of a room once a few hours ago cramped with sweet
sticky
shindig
of little souls tease the heart actually
no
torment
somewhere in the dizzying speed of work
hold that thought
there a fold of who you once were or still are tucked between the hallowed sacredness of the laundry meals
the dishes
the profane
secrets and wishes present
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but wrinkled by forgetting
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a mutiny anu pohani
Now, she can exhale. The long Tube journey, trapped under someone’s armpit, is over. Simply one breath taken in the station deep underground is not sufficient. Her lungs still feel full of fog. Zahra uses the access to Canary Wharf that runs through the Shopping Mall. Four escalators in all, two more than are needed. The first two pass in the underground darkness. The lightness begins with the third escalator, too narrow to pass another passenger, to rush up faster. The last one leads into the glass pyramid, the final artifice before real air. She should walk off the first escalator, ignore the doors on the left, go straight ahead up a different escalator, the direct route to arrive at her desk in five minutes. Each day, Zahra chooses not to. The park is a shrine she must visit. A daily, small rebellion to go through the park, a fragment of discarded green cloth on concrete grey fabric. Zahra sees the gardeners, the temple guards, each day. These trees, plants, the grass cannot thrive here ordinarily. The soil is not fertile. The sun is scarce as the buildings crowd the park and block it out. The flora requires the care of these gardeners to keep living, their flowers, their bodies artificially moulded to this artificial space. There are signs of rebellion. A hedgerow refuses to bear enough leaves to create a green wall. A red camellia bush bears blooms which will fade from bright red to washed out pink despite ministrations. Sod, carpets of fresh grass, lain repeatedly over the years always fade into mud. The human overlords decide finally to replace pieces with Astroturf. Zahra is forced into unnatural being, being told to grow where nutrients do not come. Her biology, her colour, her essence excludes her from being nurtured with the same care and attention as some of the others.
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She looks up at the Citi Tower and begins her incantation. The building is a tall monolith, monument to the sky, solid against moving clouds and yet appearing to eerily sway from the moving clouds. She looks to the ivy that has slipped past the gardeners’ attentions to uproot it. Ivy is sneaky, it comes always in little hidden bursts along the ground, against a fence. Zahra wills the ivy to climb. The Citi Tower, one day, all that will remain are the tops of its elevator shafts. Ivy has gradually eaten concrete. The superstructure has crumbled under its hungry fingers. The verdure will wind up its steel infrastructure or what is left of it. Zahra’s eyes move to the fake/real water feature. The human overlords have designed it artfully, grey slate, against grey tarmac footpath. Water streaming gently downwards over the stone steps. The water feature is chest high; she supposes to make it more accessible for the serfs who rush past. Small fountains gurgle, a natural sound, unnaturally made. She wills the water to escape, to rise out of its pool, to join the river visible through a gap in the hedgerows. Flow over, up, and down the paths made for feet until it belongs to the water once more. To the grass, peeking out near the evergreen plastic carpet, she drives it to return to its true form: long reeds, to overcome the rhythmic culling of a lawnmower. The gardeners are not temple guards; she recognises them finally for what they are: jailers. In her mind’s eye they began as carers, ensuring a small piece of nature is given its place. The truth arrives: they are guardsmen, paid to guarantee nature does not take its course. She banishes them in her mind, allowing the grass to rise high against a new riverbank. The Astroturf will fade to grey, broken over by the creeping grasses and weeds that belong here, but still somehow indestructible to time’s magic. To the pines, planted here for their natural ability for supernatural growth, for them she invites their brethren. May helicopters from the ash, the sycamore, the maple be brought by the wind. May the grey and red squirrels bring acorns as offerings. Zahra wills these to return. Recolonise
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the high ground, may the oaks have children who wake to a new genesis. When it comes, some alien race or evolved humans will crawl all over Canary Wharf as an archaeological site. The remnants of the warren of desks, wires and vending machines will be cordoned off as evidence of this civilisation. The underground shopping centres will have the eternal packaging of our fake food, all in glass display plinths. These enlightened beings will marvel at how we spent so many hours in these spaces. These future creatures will approach by boat, some of the raised ground long reclaimed by the mighty river that had been partially barriered in the east. It will be an odd sort of tourist attraction. Zahra prays to the future beings who come to the grave of this existence for love, for pity, for forgiveness. They will have moved on from this prison, having learned to let nature take over. It is the only fitting end for her for this unnatural world: one where only certain plants may grow, where only certain people may thrive. This small park, her shrine, may it mark the beginning of a new era, may it be the seed. She forces her incantation to have strength, manifest into reality. Finished, she goes to work, arriving to her desk for 9am as required. She gives it a stroke, smiling with satisfaction, having created its doom.
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contributors zara r. ahmed (she/they) is a South Asian poet based in Toronto, Canada. Her work draws on and deconstructs themes of intimacy and isolation through the lens of atmospheric imagery. Zara’s work can be read online at @ahmzers on Instagram and Twitter. Shayna Gee (she/they) is a first-generation non-binary Chinese poet living on stolen Ramaytush Ohlone land also known as San Francisco, California. They have a degree in sociology from Mills College and will be forthcoming in West Trestle Review 2021. They are a tiger in the Chinese zodiac and a middle child of two sisters. Instagram: @middlechildsyndrome Noeme Grace C. Tabor-Farjani has authored Letters from Libya, a chapbook of short memoirs which chronicled her family’s escape from the Second Libyan Civil War in 2014. Her poems have been published in Your Dream Journal (US), Global Poemic (India), Luna Luna (US), Fahmidan (Kuwait), 433 Magazine (US), Milly Magazine (New Zealand), Aerogramme Center for Arts and Culture (US), Cicada Magazine (Hong Kong), and forthcoming in Harpy Hybrid Review (US), Floresta Magazine (UK), and Agapanthus Collective (US). In 2018, she successfully defended her PhD dissertation on flow psychological theory in creative writing pedagogy. She teaches high school humanities courses in the Philippines and is currently working on a chapbook of poems on spirituality and the body. You can find her on Facebook: https:// www.facebook.com/noeme.g.c.tabor. Rosana (Rosie) Hurtado Klaus (she/her) is a Chicanx pianist based in Los Angeles who spreads her energy through studying classical piano, teaching, making earrings out of clay, exploring Chicanx literature, and journaling. Her Chicanx identity encourages her to think about and connect with her roots and to explore her family story. She hopes to one day bridge her two worlds by creating a Chicanx chamber ensemble. @dolceandrubato 26
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Lexi Locket is a creative in Phoenix, AZ. She enjoys the art of storytelling through poetry, prose, music, and performance art. When not creating, Lexi works as a music therapist in the mental health field. Lexi also enjoys playing roller derby, spending time with her family and friends, and raising her fur babies. She self-published her first chapbook, ‘The After Life’, in the fall of 2019. She can be found on Twitter @punkiepie394 and Instagram @poetrywithlexi Edith Knight Magak is a creative writer whose work has appeared in The Lazy Women, Brittle Paper, Meeting of Minds UK, Critical Read, Urban Ivy, Jellyfish review among others. A slush reader at Flash Fiction online, She also works as a literary journalist for Africa in Dialogue. Edith is currently based in Nairobi, Kenya. Find her on Twitter @oedithknight. Shon Mapp (she/her) is a queer Black writer whose work explores multicultural immigrant identities, kinship and queer intimacy. Her poems and short stories have been published or are forthcoming in Fourteen Poems, Ghost Heart, Kissing Dynamite, Dwelling Lit, Glitchwords, and Cathexis Northwest Press Lineadeluz is a cyberspace pedagogical alchemist, conjuring strategies for knowledge and resource dissemination through exploring diverse creative aesthetic representations. Her practice questions the representation of bodies within techno-social systems through feminist and queer perspectives. She presents an experimental visual prose through collage regarding revolutionary praxis within social relations. You can connect with her via IG @ lineadeluz 27
art as activism
Maria S. Picone (she/her) has been published in Kissing Dynamite, *82 Review, and Q/A Poetry, among others. A Korean adoptee, Maria explores themes of identity and social justice in her work. She is the winner of the 2020 Cream City Review Summer Prize in Poetry and a 2020 HUES Scholar. Her website is mariaspicone. com, Twitter @mspicone. Anu Pohani is an Asian-American expat living in London. She graduated from Columbia University in 2000 with an Economics major, and an English concentration. She spent the last 20 years in finance, while haplessly mothering two children. A Mutiny is the first published piece from her pivot back to right-brain pursuits. She can be found on Twitter @AnuPohani Currently faculty at Hugo House and The Loft Literary Center, Rachel Werner is also the founder of The Little Book Project WI; a book reviewer for Shelf Awareness; and a We Need Diverse Books program volunteer. Her work has appeared in Fabulous Wisconsin, BRAVA, and Entrepreneurial Chef. Follow her adventures around the country on Twitter @therealscripts.
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masthead Rebecca Gross (she/they) is a writer, educator, and researcher living in Los Angeles. She is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of All Female Menu. Gross teaches first-year college students rhetorical arts, a social-justice based class that encourages students to think across disciplines, through multimedia, and beyond canons. A few badass publications she’s had the privilege of publishing her work in include: Stone of Madness Press, Seiren Quarterly, Terse Journal, Variant Literature, Teen Belle Mag, Los Angeles Review of Books, and Los Angeles Progressive. When she isn’t writing, she drums in a punk band called Lady Starshine. Find more about her at rebeccagross.com or on Twitter: @becsgross. Monica Niehaus (she/her) is a product designer currently living in San Francisco. She is the designer for All Female menu. Niehaus currently spends most of her days working in the tech industry and building inclusive customer experiences. Find more about her at monicaniehaus.com or on Twitter:@monica_niehaus. grace novacek (she/they) is a writer and illustrator and lover of frogs from Illinois. she currently serves as the Art Director for All Female Menu. their work has been published in Human Condition, Variant Lit, and Moonchild Mag. find out more at gnovs.com or on Twitter (@gnovs) + IG (@gnovs) anaïs peterson (name/they) is the digital content coordinator for afm. an organizer, mixed blessing, and lover of the sky anaïs writes a mix of lyric essays and prose poems around the topic of freedom in its many forms and often returning to dwell on sunflowers. anaïs’ words have appeared in sampsonia way magazine (poem of the week series), all female menu, collision lit magazine, the pitt news, fully lit magazine, mixed mag, sage cigarettes, and has upcoming in dreams walking. anaïs is also a poetry reader for non.plus lit. anaïs writes in black pen, garamond size 11, and tweets about a world beyond capitalism from @anais_pgh.
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