World Poetry Day: Well-behaved women never made history

I can imagine Virgina,

With her pocket full of stones,

Still trying to convince Sylvia

The oven was meant for baking scones

And Amy Winehouse sitting back

With a glass filled with cognac

Taking fashion advice from Marilyn

While the wallpaper stares at Perkins

And Parker tries again to slit her wrist

And yet amidst these literary heroines

And giants of the past

There’s this terrible agony

I wonder where it comes from?

Was it passed down from the first taunt

‘This ain’t how girls behave?’

Control and endure and don’t try

To make a name.

Akhmatova begging for her son’s life

I can picture it so clear.

Rowling accused of being a witch

Arundhati surrounded by sneers.

What is it that makes people so contemptuous

Of their life?

That made Miao-Chin leave the pen

And pick up a knife?

On the occasion of World Poetry Day, my tribute to history's most impactful females and how they suffered.