To the Porter Sisters, Amrita Pritam, and other Women they did not teach for my Literature Degree

Divya Benezette

I’m so sorry your celestial minds

Were deemed unworthy of the spotlight we’ve dedicated to the man who would

Never been known if you were not the first bloom

And stories written by

Ivory powders

And male egotism,

Half-hearted “I love my wife when she obeys me” sagas—arrogance and blissful bigotry,

I’m so sorry it was the minds

Who refused to think of you beyond the stretch of their arms

That scribbled all over your pages

And the textbooks we tirelessly study from.

Almost all the words we read escape us

Except that Shakespeare was a god amongst scholars

But I promise we will remember you given the chance—

I’m so sorry that it has taken an eternity to find that.

But I will write for you

Until my hands bleed

And fill up every journal

I’ve put down out of fear

I vow never to bury my words

Like they bound yours in leather, all together

Tucked away on a lonesome shelf,

The Silencing of the Library of Alexandria—

I will not become those who saw you as

Frittering spinsters, only writing should your Scott-

Fitzgerald or Walter- allow it,

Because you were the greats of your lifetime,

But man decided that history shall say

It could not be two sisters who created the historical genre, but one man

And Amrita Pritam does not roll off the tongue like Whitman—

Still, I rejoice in knowing

I can rebuild the space you built

And give you your roses

As I gather mine.

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Divya Benezette is a graduate student in professional writing with a creative writing track. She recently completed her undergraduate degree in English literature at Towson University. She is an avid poet, academic, reader, and lover of animals and nature. You can find her poem ‘Fungus Gnats' in Bardics Anonymous magazine.