Well, in case you somehow escaped my email and Facebook messaging, here’s notice that I’ll be giving a public reading at the autumn opener of the Vertigo Reading Series. Come out on Monday, September 28 to hear a Saskatchewan quartet of writers — Sheri Benning, Randy Lundy, David Sealy and me — share our words. The show gets underway sometime around 7 p.m. at  Aegean Coast Coffee and Tea, 1901 Hamilton Street (corner of 12th Ave & Hamilton St), in Regina.

See you there!

And because I’m feeling generous, a still-drafty poem to honour the work of the Prairie Lily Feminist Society!

There’s a war on women

and the United Nations knows it, created the Convention

on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination

Against Women. CEDAW.

See, duh? It’s true.

There’s discrimination. Otherwise, why

are women 52% of the world’s population

and own only 1% of its land.

There’s a global war on women

but no one’s talking about it, not really.

CEDAW’s not working so well, the UN’s shifted

to Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) to fight an msg headache

the size of which no one wants to believe.

Women world-wide live in poverty, violence, disease

targetted by goals to make change. Goals.

There’s a war on women and it’s happening in Canada, too.

Mulroney and the boyz axed NAC, dissed

women’s work for equality. Chretien kept it up.

Chopped away at women’s programs, goodbye Cretin

and hello Paul Martin, Minister of Finance turned PM,

carried the axe for far too long.

There’s a war on women

and now Harper’s leading the charge.

No need for equality. Mandates

for feminism. Organizations which won significant rights —

Charter rights

reproductive choice

employment equity

same sex marriage —

goodbye.  A left-wing fringe group? Huh?

There’s a war on women

and it’s happening here, in Saskatchewan, too.

Ah, but the NDP, they’re different!

Not! Romanow and Link, lovers of feminists

until elected, tossed us aside in favour of debt reduction, big biz,

derided us as too radical. Quietly called us feminazis. Calvert

closed Women’s Sec, purged policy wonks

too Keynesian, captured headline praises from Fraser’s Institute,

that rightwing think tank the Harperites love.

There’s a war on women

and it’s here and now

Premier Wall won’t appoint a woman

to be Responsible for our status,

won’t balance gender on Enterprise SK,

and assigns 12 men to decide our uranium future.

He’d rather men continue their war

leaving us in poverty, earning 70 cents on a dollar

while his boyz call us dumb bitches .

There’s a war on women

and it’s right here and now

It’s right in your face, if you dare open

your eyes.

There’s a war on women

and we’re standing up to it.

Brave lilies, a feminist society, organizing.

—B. L. Wagner