WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.150 align:middle line:90%


00:00:02.150 --> 00:00:03.795 align:middle line:84%
This is called
"Divisions of Labor."

00:00:03.795 --> 00:00:10.080 align:middle line:90%


00:00:10.080 --> 00:00:13.230 align:middle line:84%
And for me, this
poem comes very much

00:00:13.230 --> 00:00:17.550 align:middle line:84%
out of being a part-time
women's studies teacher

00:00:17.550 --> 00:00:25.725 align:middle line:84%
and trying to teach history
and activism and theory all

00:00:25.725 --> 00:00:31.410 align:middle line:84%
together and some of the
contradictions of trying

00:00:31.410 --> 00:00:33.210 align:middle line:90%
to do that.

00:00:33.210 --> 00:00:35.598 align:middle line:90%
"Divisions of Labor"

00:00:35.598 --> 00:00:36.930 align:middle line:90%


00:00:36.930 --> 00:00:41.280 align:middle line:84%
"The revolutions
wheel, compromise,

00:00:41.280 --> 00:00:43.830 align:middle line:90%
utter their statements.

00:00:43.830 --> 00:00:49.050 align:middle line:84%
A new magazine appears,
mastheaded with old names.

00:00:49.050 --> 00:00:52.290 align:middle line:84%
An old magazine
polishes up its act

00:00:52.290 --> 00:00:58.740 align:middle line:84%
with deconstructions of
the prose of Malcolm X.

00:00:58.740 --> 00:01:02.190 align:middle line:84%
The women in the
back rows of politics

00:01:02.190 --> 00:01:06.330 align:middle line:84%
are still licking thread to
slip into the needle's eye,

00:01:06.330 --> 00:01:11.220 align:middle line:84%
trading bones for plastic,
splitting pods for necklaces

00:01:11.220 --> 00:01:14.790 align:middle line:84%
to sell to the cruise
ships, producing

00:01:14.790 --> 00:01:18.600 align:middle line:84%
immaculate first communion
dresses with flat iron

00:01:18.600 --> 00:01:21.420 align:middle line:90%
and irresolute hot water.

00:01:21.420 --> 00:01:25.470 align:middle line:84%
Still fitting the
microscopic golden wires

00:01:25.470 --> 00:01:28.200 align:middle line:90%
into the silicon chips.

00:01:28.200 --> 00:01:32.040 align:middle line:84%
Still teaching, watching
the children quenched

00:01:32.040 --> 00:01:36.090 align:middle line:84%
in the crossfire alleys,
the flash flood gullies,

00:01:36.090 --> 00:01:39.060 align:middle line:90%
the kerosene flash fires.

00:01:39.060 --> 00:01:43.380 align:middle line:84%
The women whose labor
remakes the world each

00:01:43.380 --> 00:01:46.170 align:middle line:90%
and every morning.

00:01:46.170 --> 00:01:49.320 align:middle line:84%
I have seen a woman
sitting between the stove

00:01:49.320 --> 00:01:54.120 align:middle line:84%
and the stars, her fingers
singed from snuffing out

00:01:54.120 --> 00:01:58.350 align:middle line:90%
the candles of pure theory.

00:01:58.350 --> 00:02:02.760 align:middle line:84%
Finger and thumb
both scorched, I

00:02:02.760 --> 00:02:07.500 align:middle line:84%
have felt that sacred
wax blister my hand."

00:02:07.500 --> 00:02:08.000 align:middle line:90%