Las Chicas Return

If you know me, then you know that I've made it a point of pride to avoid putting on pants for the vast majority of my spring break.

However, yesterday was an exception. I ventured out of my writerly cave  (of course, wearing pants) to spend the afternoon with my fellow "chicks" to discuss future plans for our little unofficial poetry group known as "Chicks with Words."

What is CWW? We SAY we're a group of three women focused on exploring and expanding the definitions of femininity through verse. In reality? We're three crazy gals who like to get together to drink coffee (or wine, depending), talk about poems (or men, depending), and laugh (always). Mary Ann, Linda and myself have been friends for awhile, but we "made it official" when we began participating in poetry readings, conferences, and events as a, well, package deal. Linda is known as "the worker," Mary Ann the "sister" and me, well, you've probably guessed it: I'm the goddess.

Unfortunately, Mary Ann wasn't able to make it to our little coffee-get-together yesterday, but Linda and I did some planning (and a lot of talking about men) yesterday. You see, we have a panel at FESTIBA next week, and we needed to kind of re-articulate our mission. Linda and I decided we were going to focus our panel discussion on gender, and how our friendship has inspired us to explore our own poetics in unique and interesting ways.

So now I have to really think: How has friendship and collaboration with other women shaped the writer I am today? I want to think about specifics, not just a cloudy manifesto type of thing. Linda and I have been swapping poems to one another for years. Mary Ann and I are like the shadow and the light, polar opposites that meet, talk, and never fail to have interesting and inspiring conversations.

I hope that our panel inspires other women to come together, too, in commeraderie, to grow as writers and as human beings. That, after all, is what friends are for.

Chicks need each other. Chicks need words. We've got words to spare.

Our panel will take place on March 21st at UTPA in ARHU 250 at 2:30pm. Join us!