Poetry Performance by Sharon Lia Robinson © 1979, © 2014
This is a 1979 film of my early feminist poem “whoever i am, i’m a fat womon.” This poem was written in 1976 and is in my 1978 chapbook, “fat womon/renaissance” and also in the anthology, Shadow on a Tightrope, (writings by women on fat oppression).
Please share/post this archival poetry film for others to see.
“whoever i am, i’m a fat womon” was originally filmed by Lynne Conroy in January, 1979. For the Theater Project of the Goddard-Cambridge Graduate Program in Social Change, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Lynne Conroy and I were theater students there.
This film is a rehearsal for the Radcliffe College Women’s Theater Festival, January 1979, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
In 2008 I researched and arranged for technical transfer of the 1979 reel to reel 1/2 inch videotape to DVD.
In May, 2014, Reverend Ed Evans of Sequim, Washington, did the film editing for putting this poem onto youtube.
Produced by Sharon Lia Robinson, May, 2014, with screen titles and roses.
Here is another poem from the 1979 film by Lynne Conroy.
Uninvited Space
by Sharon Lia Robinson
a great fat woman
hips swaying wide
claims to be an actress
and you who see the film
might renounce old illusions
mistakes bad attractions
and you who know the score
recover your minds
to see you’ve been had
like this woman
remembering
the smile your eyes once buried
those looks which murdered her mind
like this woman
slashing contortions
shaming betrayals
shattering insults
dissolving the blindness
as she dazzles you with her life.
Love it.
Thank you, Lynne. And thank you for filming me for this poetry performance.
enjoyed a powerfully spoken poem – thank you