Poetry Forum

The New Amazons

Some of them actually look like women,
though most of them can’t pull it off.
I do admire their courage to risk ridicule.

For the rest of us, years of laughing at
comedians in wigs, pearls and frocks must be
forgotten, for the law says we must
take them seriously.

So many musts.

We must accept them as real for what
they think they are. We must let them tell
us who we are, for they are experts on
everything surreal. We must speak about
them only in words they specify.

Women must welcome them into their games,
live with them in shelters, prisons, dorms;
appreciate their naked bodies when they bathe.
Children must accept them as their guides.

This is the New Order, a world in which
every impossible thing is true. Blue is pink
and pink is blue. No one is who she seems to be.
Should you decide to disagree, take care.
The beast’s army is ready to engage you,
to slap you down, cancel, crush and shame you.
The truth is on your side, but may not save you.

~end~

Posting this poem on PoetBay got me suspended. We'll see what happens here.

I don't dislike transgender women personally, but transgender ideology is a nightmare of self-serving inconsistencies, and that's mainly what I am directing my ire to. Cancel culture is also something I hate, and cancel culture is very much aligned with trans people. I decided to focus on trans women in this poem because focussing on both genders made the poem less concise.

I'm missing the individual in this Perry. Your poem 'Frat Boys' had a concrete incident to access perceptions of behaviour. The 'them' here I find too generalised for me to engage.

best

mac

Good point, Mac. I'll think about that.

CalebPerry wrote: ↑

Sat Jul 24, 2021 1:45 am

The New Amazons

Some of them actually look like women,
though most of them can’t pull it off.
I do admire their courage to risk ridicule.

For the rest of us, years of laughing at
comedians in wigs, pearls and frocks must be
forgotten, for the law says we must
take them seriously.

So many musts.

We must accept them as real for what
they think they are. We must let them tell
us who we are, for they are experts on
everything surreal. We must speak about
them only in words they specify.

Women must welcome them into their games,
live with them in shelters, prisons, dorms;
appreciate their naked bodies when they bathe.
Children must accept them as their guides.

This is the New Order, a world in which
every impossible thing is true. Blue is pink
and pink is blue. No one is who she seems to be.
Should you decide to disagree, take care.
The beast’s army is ready to engage you,
to slap you down, cancel, crush and shame you.
The truth is on your side, but may not save you.

~end~

Good day Caleb. This is not hate speech, but an argument.

I'm still getting the hang of how to annotate on this site. The underlined portions are suggested cuts.

"Beast's army" does cross a line I think.

I agree with Mac on the "them" issue, but it didn't stop me from wanting to keep reading.

PPE

One more thought on this one: intersperse your argument with responses from their viewpoint.

PPE, thank you for your suggestions. With all that stuff removed, the poem still reads pretty well, so I may keep some of your suggestions. "Blue is pink and pink is blue" is my favorite line in the poem, so that will be staying. I'll keep working on it. The poem has a rough IP meter, so that will factor into it.