Minnie Bruce Pratt

Minnie Bruce Pratt Calls For Women Liberation

The history of feminism dates back to the history of women 's movement It has existed since the 19th century dealing with issues on suffrage The second wave of women fought for the unofficial inequalities and was continued by the third wave succeeding its failure . The poetry of Pratt advocates the continuation of this movement and thus writes about the advocacy of liberating women in society . The poem called Cahaba describing the river in Alabama where she grew up . She describes the natural treasures that

lie beside it , such as worn stones shattered /at veins of crystal /where arrowheads lie / hidden but angled for flight (http /www .mbpratt .org /dirtpoems .html ) to the untapped power of the women in this rural southern community who flow like the river / in the dry beds of men (http /www .mbpratt .org /dirtpoems .html The poem furthers about the oppression of the patriarchal society and that if these women would be released from their humdrum situation , then they flood the fields . spread the red mud to move . over house and porch .split the sycamores through . to the white core of pith ' And then ultimately , they would be able to stand up from their situation and step up where they would . However , it is still metaphorical as to the kind of situation in terms of the specificity upon the realization of these thoughts

In another poem called My Mother Loves Women ' Pratt describes her mother 's reluctance and distance from men and that perhaps the only men in her life is her brother and her father

While months go by without her speaking to her brother

who plays dominoes at the machine shop with the men

I don 't think she 's known a man except this brother

And my father who for the last twenty years has

been waiting

for death in his rocking chair in front of the TV

set

Joy Parks in her review of Pratts 's The Dirt She Ate ' wrote , her poems are highly biographical and intimate they are as complex and demanding as the life she speaks from ' In the above poetry , Pratt untangles the truth without hesitation . She reveals that the story of her lesbianism vis-a-vis with feminism roots to her mother who might have undergone the same dilemma . However , the hesitation and some degree of embarrassment may be deeply rooted and sometimes unexplainable Pratt may prove to be tangible after all the strength in her liberation She understands she is still a woman and that she may be entitle mistakes . In her poem called Shame

I ask for justice but do not release

Myself . Do I think I was wrong ? Yes

Of course . Was Wrong . Am wrong . Can

Justify everything except their pain

Even now their cries rattle in my ears

Like icy winds pierce in cold weather

Even now a tenderness from their cries

This tells the readers that she is a woman too and that she may...