~ from Jill

This past week I was awarded a prize in a “Celebration of Women in the Arts” Poetry contest. I hadn’t known when I entered that the event would involve reading poems aloud, and when I found out, I was terrified.

Three bad dreams, two failed outfit attempts, and one last-minute pedicure later, I still felt unprepared. On Thursday night I sped to the HU building, parked illegally (in a reserved space), and splashed through a sudden rain shower (so much for the pedicure).

I entered the building to a sign full of butterflies, and a poster that said “Listen to Girls!” Then walked through one corridor to the next, each one leading to different rooms: some filled with paintings, some with quilts and textiles. At a table there were dozens of hand-crafted pins, each portraying a slice of a woman’s life, they varied from dancers and mothers to businesswomen drinking at water coolers, each pin glazed and glowing.

And then I found the poetry floor: dozens of poems by women and girls were posted to the walls. Women wove through the crowd in historical costumes, and performed monologues about their time and place in history.

In the poetry room, I listened as women read on subjects from mopping floors, to Barbie dolls and breast cancer. When it was time to read my own poem, it was truly no big deal.

I didn’t need my self-consciousness, or the pedicure. I needed to be amazed and overwhelmed by the greatness of women in all shapes and forms.

And that was exactly the unexpected gift I was given.