Pittsburgh Freethought Community

Promoting Science, Reason and Secular Humanist Values in the Greater Pittsburgh Area.

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DG4 - Women's Group "Poetry by Women"

When
Thursday, September 02, 2021
7:00 PM - 8:30 PM
Location
https://meet.google.com/beh-azmo-wcw

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This group is meant to be a space for women within PFC to meet and discuss whatever topics are of most interest. Meeting topics will be posted in advance, but please feel free to bring along topic or activity suggestions for future!

Topic for Sept. 2 is poetry by women. If you wish, bring a poem by a woman writer (maybe yourself) to read and discuss. Here is one I like.

To be of use

BY MARGE PIERCY

The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carryand a person for work that is real.Join fellow freethinkers to discuss a wide range of topics around morality, philosophy, and life’s big questions. Discussion Groups are moderated forums with preselected topics that anyone who wishes to participate in regardless of background is welcome to do so. The topic for each discussion is announced in advance, sometimes with recommended reading. Each discussion group has a different moderator and topic, and once we return to in person meetings each group will represent different geographical locations.