General · Personal

Inspiration Porn

This is a zanze I wrote, posted on my old blog. It’s about certain views on disability, chronic illness and women:

Antonia Sara Zenkevitch

I’m not your inspiration porn

For you to sensationalize

As your source of motivation

For your more abled-bodied lives,

Not your inspiration

Or measure of your skill,

A Paralympian

Nor life uncured to kill,

I’m not your porn,

Objectified

For you to own

Or criticize,

Not your

Provocation

Your stimulus or spur;

I’m not your inspiration porn.

Antonia Sara Zenkevitch

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Democracy · General

A gender

One commentator expounds

On May digging in stiletto heels,

As he, on shaky and unlevel grounds

Blames a government’s historic failure;

To reach a workable deal

(With a gall that even now astounds)

On the Prime Minister’s gender,

 

The interviewer does not question assertions

Made with usual, casual, lethal sexism

As the commentator mentions a lack of children

As if that were a reason for derision;

Or cause of brinkmanship or inflexibility,

Equating female ambition

With a leader’s inability

Or unwillingness to seek

To engage constitutionally,

As if the issue was women in politics

Or in the monarchy,

As if there were the statistics

To back up such misogyny;

Too few women have led

To make such sweeping analogy,

It is not May’s womanhood

For which she owes apology.

Democracy · General

A January Morning

 

A January Sunday morning,

After my ritual of washing

Dan comes in with the Guardian,

While drinking tea I’m listening

To desired reports, hope glistening;

In the USA diverse representatives sworn in,

In the UK, political rebellion against fracking

And I hear, deep inside, a caged bird sing

While doors with rusty iron locks are slowly opening.

 

Antonia Sara Zenkevitch