Women in resistance: Creative writing workshop-

A few months ago we had a collaborative creative writing workshop with UEA creative writing society based around the theme of resistance. Below our committee member Louise Collins shares what she wrote in this session-

Prompt: Write about what you’re resisting without telling us what it is.

I’m an unmovable mountain,

I will not yield to your limitations.

I’m intelligent,

A force to be reckoned with.

You, with your condescending stance,

And your patronizing gaze.

You try to diminish me,

To embarrass me.

To tell me I’m weak.

But I will not stop pushing.

I will not stop resisting

Because I’m my own boss.

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Prompt: Describe a scene with implicit / subliminal resistance, and show it through form.

You. A broad and steady as an Ox,

You try to keep me in a box.

You try to keep me trapped,

But I, I will not be cracked.

You try to keep me down,

But I, I will pound

On these walls until I am free.

You can’t contain me, I will break

The glass ceiling.

You will not. Break. Me.

For I am woman,

And I’m unbreakable.

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Prompt: Personify Oppression.

I will beat you down,

laugh in your face at

every suggestion you make.

I will watch you like a hawk.

make it obvious that you

don’t belong here.

Because you don’t.

You’re an outsider.

Powerless

Weak.

I will interrupt you every time you talk.

I will make it obvious that your opinion is invalid.

I will mock you until you choke on your own words.

I will strip down your rights until you have

No choice but

To protest.

At that point, I will smear your name,

And ruin

Your reputation.

And then I will act like the hero who has

Defeated the villain.

You’re a freak.

Ugly.

Evil.

And we don’t accept freaks.

We don’t accept you.

So leave.

Because you’re not welcome here.

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