Happy Martin Luther King Day! Rejoice and celebrate as we approach the inauguration of Barack Obama, an inauguration Dr. King predicted in his 1964 BBC interview.

Happy New Year!

To celebrate, I’d like to quote an excerpt from Anne Waldman, performance artist, poet and co-founder of the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, CO. Her 31 page poem, “Fast Speaking Woman” from the book by that name is a lengthy mantra and tribute to every kind of woman and the many facets of each woman.

because I don’t have spit

because I don’t have rubbish

because I don’t have dust

because I don’ have that which is in air

because I am air

let me try you with my magic power:

I’m a shouting woman

I’m a speech woman

I’m an atmosphere woman

I’m an airtight woman

I’m a flesh woman

I’m a flexible woman

I’m a high-heeled woman

I’m a high-style woman

I’m an automobile woman

I’m a mobile woman

I’m an elastic woman

I’m a necklace woman

I’m a silk –scarf woman

I’m a know-nothing woman

I’m a know-it-all woman

I’m a day woman

I’m a doll woman

I’m a sun woman

I’m a late afternoon woman

I’m a clock woman

I’m a wind woman

I’m a white woman

I’m a SILVER LIGHT WOMAN

I’m an AMBER LIGHT WOMAN

I’m an EMERALD LIGHWOMAN

I’m an abalone woman

I’m the abandoned woman

I’m the woman abashed, the gibberish woman

the aborigine woman, the woman absconding

the Nubian woman

the antediluvian woman

the absent woman

the transparent woman

the absinthe woman

the woman absorbed, the woman under tyranny

the contemporary woman, the mocking woman

the artist dreaming inside her house

I’m the gadget woman

I’m the druid woman

I’m the Ibo woman

I’m the Yoruba woman

I’m the vibrato woman

I’m the rippling woman

I’m the gutted woman

I’m the woman with wounds

I’m the woman with shins

I’m the bruised woman

I’m the eroding woman

I’m the suspended woman

I’m the woman alluring

I’m the architect woman

I’m the trout woman

I’m the tungsten woman

I’m the woman with the keys

I’m the woman with the glue

I’m a fast speaking woman

water that cleans

flowers that clean

water that cleans as I go

II.

woman never under your thumb, says

skull that was a head , says

bloodshot eyes, says

I’m the Kali woman the killer woman

women with salt on her tongue

fire that cleans

fire that catches

fire burns hotter I go