RUNTcollective

When you drowned your own voice

crushed it down into your

fragile

8 year old

childlike frame

down into the pit where

your trauma lurked

where your nightmares recurred

hid it deep down with all your hurt

when you vowed to never speak a word

while your family prayed 

to hear you again

to heal you again

in that long five years

when your precious bird song

was missing from their skies

could they ever imagine

that one day your voice

would light the hearts 

Proverbial Threads by Robbin Ami Silverberg

For the series I chose to focus on text, working with proverbs from cultures around the world that focus on woman’s work. It consists of an open series (over 100) of industrial bobbins, each wrapped with paper threads that have printed on them a repeated proverb about women’s work. Here is a small selection of proverbs:

“The threaded needle judges the girl.” (Spanish, Argentina)

“The only skill that women have is turning the spinning wheel.” (Hebrew)

“A household with a woman is like a flower bed, a household without one like a wasteland.” (Uzbek)

“A wife is the best piece of furniture.” (Dutch)

“However smart a woman may be, she will end up in the kitchen.” (Indonesian)

“Do not humiliate your wife; she is your home.” (Ovambo, Angola/ Namibia)

After hearing tons of praise for this little zine and pretty much everything else Julia Eff has done, I picked up my own copy a couple weeks ago.

Whatstheirname: More Adventures w/o Gender, by Julia Eff

Whatstheirname is a zine primarily focusing on living without a gender.  I love the way the zine was put together, with pictures of various musicians pasted on nearly every page, along with some little sketches here and there.  Sometimes funny, sometimes sad, Whatstheirname is mainly a collection of personal experiences and stories, ranging from going to shows to dealing with a non-understanding ex to generally feeling alright, but then feeling bad again.  It even has a pronoun guide written by Oscar Wilde himself!