Ma: A Multidisciplinary State

I can’t find the root sound of a one-womxn audience

Illustration by Sarula Bao

Author’s note: This poem is instigated by our society’s de facto policy around reproductive labor, which even prior to the pandemic we had failed to redistribute equitably, and for which continued tolerance for patriarchy and capitalism are ultimately responsible.

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Cynthia Dewi Oka

Cynthia Dewi Oka is the author of Salvage: Poems (Northwestern University Press, 2017) and Nomad of Salt and Hard Water (Thread Makes Blanket, 2016). Her work has appeared widely in print and online, most recently in Pleiades, PRISM International, EPSN’s The Undefeated, Scoundrel Time, wildness literary journal, and elsewhere. With community partner Asian Arts Initiative, she created Sanctuary: A Migrant Poetry Workshop, for immigrant poets in Philadelphia. She has been awarded scholarships from VONA and the Vermont Studio Center, the Fifth Wednesday Journal Editor’s Prize in Poetry, the Tupelo Quarterly Poetry Prize, the Leeway Foundation’s Transformation Award, and the Amy Clampitt Residency (2021-2022). Originally from Bali, Indonesia, she holds an MFA from Warren Wilson College and currently teaches creative writing at Bryn Mawr College. 

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