The Book of the City of Ladies

“I should not be accused of madness, arrogance, or pretentiousness in that I, a woman, dared to criticize such a skilled author and to diminish the praise of his work, when he alone dared to defame and to insult, without exception, an entire sex.”– Christine de Pizan (1365-1429) 

In forbidden

Pursuit,

Knowing,

Tomes spread all around me

Like skirt-fan in the wind

Amused by lamentation

And then dumbfounded

As to why so many men seem compelled

To utter awful damning things about

Women and their ways.

And so, God-forsaken,

I take the burden to build

The City of Ladies

Upon the Field of Letters

Founded on the clear spring

Of Reason, strong and true,

To last for all eternity.

And as I plunge and pull my sharp spade

In and out the fertile earth

You counsel me that good intensions

Are no shield for sheer stupidity.

Denouncing fire.

Denying light.

Inside my city, there is no room

For such and other horrible, ugly, misshapen stones.

Let me be the first to

Cast them out.