Women speak out with poetry in celebration of International Women's Day

International Women’s Day falls on a Friday this year, which for some feels like a free pass from the universe to dedicate the weekend to the celebration of the woman. 

As March 8 approaches, female-led movie marathons commence in living rooms around the world, issues facing women will be discussed and daughters extend extra embraces to their sisters and mothers. 

Chapel Hill residents, however, have an extra opportunity to make this IWD special: a three-day celebration of the feminine experience through art and poetry at the FRANK.

The gallery, "Women Speak," opens Friday and showcases 27 art works by visual artist Nancy Smith, each depicting a different aspect of the female experience. Throughout the past year, Smith has invited women to respond to her works, and 15 women will read their responses in a poetry reading on Sunday, March 10. Their poems will also be displayed alongside the art pieces they responded to.

The project originally began in February of 2018 when Smith realized that her emotions were translating into her paintings. As she hung up the female figures she painted, she saw angst, excitement, love, peace —whatever she was feeling on that day — hanging on her wall. She began inviting female writers on social media in May of that year to write about their experiences being a woman in response to her paintings.

“It started getting shared on social media so that it went all over the world," Smith said. "We started getting submissions from all these different countries like India, Sri Lanka, Canada, France, England, Ireland, some woman on a sailboat off the coast of Venezuela. It was wild. I’d never dreamed it would be like that.” 

One of those women is Virginia Hudson, freelance writer and cello teacher at Meredith College. She found the inspiration for her response poem, entitled “Bed of Roses,” when she encountered a couple sitting near her at a coffee shop in Pittsburgh.

They appeared to Hudson to be very in love, but they were talking about a problem. One of them was married to someone else, Hudson said. Hudson then walked across the street into a church that was under construction and began thinking about how the couple's relationship was under construction and renovation. The colors on Smith's painting also reminded her of the stained glass in the church. 

"It was just a really sweet moment that I was witnessing," Hudson said. "I heard her say something about how she didn’t feel afraid to be seen by him. I’ve sometimes felt hidden in my own marriage. It’s just that complicated terrain of love."  

Aleta Payne, a freelance writer for newspapers and magazines, also stepped out of her comfort zone of prose to write response poems to Smith’s works. Two of her poems will be displayed in the gallery, each exploring a distinctly different aspect of her female experience. 

“Feathers” expresses the emotional map that comes with becoming an “empty nester” parent. Payne felt like she had to redefine who she is and what she does after her three sons left the house permanently, she said.

“It’s something that has been marked by both an opportunity to do some new and different things for myself but also some lingering sadness,” Payne said. 

Payne’s second poem, "You Are Mistaken” reflects her navigation of the world as a woman of color, tracing her internal dialogue in response to feeling like she has to conduct herself a certain way. 

While Smith’s work sparked poets and writers around the world to tap into their deepest emotions and experiences, Smith herself said she stood newly inspired by the network of voices she had drawn forth.

"One person at a time inspires someone else, and it catches and other people get drawn into it, as well. That’s what I feel like will happen when people come to the exhibit," Smith said. 

Smith said her main goal in painting is to bring as much beauty to the world as she can, and the collaborative works of multiple women displayed in "Women Speak" attest to the healing power of bringing emotion to the public sphere through different art forms.

"If you deal with the fear of going there because some places are really dark, and we don’t want to look at them, if you just go ahead, and do it and express it, somehow it releases it from your body, from your soul, so that there's some kind of healing going on," Smith said. 

arts@dailytarheel.com