Melanie and I became close friends in Portland, Oregon, in the Mid 1970s, both teaching part time at Portland State University.  We remained close friends ever since, even though we lived far away from each other much of the time.

I left Portland I before she became involved with the movement against violence against women but I know a bit about the creativity and the broad and deep political perspective that Melanie brought to the movement. I have one example with me — a sticker Melanie and her friend Paula created that they posted all over the city, particularly in places where women had been assaulted.

In the Women’s Studies Program where I taught in New Paltz, New York, we had a tradition of reading a poem that spoke to each graduating senior’s spirit and work in Women’s Studies. The poem I reached for most often was the I will read today because it so powerfully conveys the transformation that so many women in the women’s liberation and students in women’s studies experienced. Its an early poem, written in 1977 and published in Melanie’s first poetry collection entitled We Speak in Code.

Survival is an Act of Resistance

First, suffer

Second repeat after me

It’s my fault Understand that

you yourself have caused your pain or

that you are wicked and selfish

to complain; or

that this suffering is good

for something  heaven

or character

or just practice

for what comes next.

Third, treat the subject delicately

Even among friends

Sweat when you think

If anyone knew

How stupid you really are

How you hate you body

How you smack your kids

What your face looks like under make up

That your breasts have hairs which you pluck

How hour husband’s body disgusts you

How his friend’s body turns you on

How her breasts sway

and how you’re sweating.

So be ashamed

to bring it up over coffee

Or over fake coffee

because real coffee takes too long

If you do

over whatever passes for coffee

mention whatever passes for your fault

Finding it’s her fault too

Watch her

like a mirror you want to break.

You go home lighter, able

to make dinner.

That night you take him

Inside to pound your cervix

Mea culpa you cry in your orgasm

If you have one

                        ********

The survivor is busy

Surviving. The waking is never slow enough

Go under, they have said it

all your life.

                ********

In and out of groups you notice

Nine women on the rug in a circle feel

Jus as guilty a s you

For hating his socks’ smell

For how he says the same way every night

‘coming to bed soon’

It’s not a question

They noticed too.

The door opens, walk through

with a suitcase. Toss awake

over money, the dark and the car.

Hole up for weeks in a bathrobe

hands tight in your pockets.

Fall through the black pit of your brain

touching for bottom.

Your feet find

there’s a floor to stand on

Check out the corners for pencils

dusty change

Fix your  own toilet

Answer the phone

Discover you like your face.

Over coffee your heart spills, her eyes

are full as yours. You’re scared,

there were stories, remember?

Now they come true.

You laugh deep from your stomach

and she laughs too. Your insides shock open

Her body comes open

She smells like the sea “delicious.”

You laugh, you laugh open

And she laughs too.

Your brain opens

Let it, your body

swims into reach, climb in.

Learn it with caution.

The black speckled notebook begins

with a question:

who is the subject?

Speak what you know: I am an edge to balance.

One cell of the planet

also the planet’s eye

Also the woman who learns how to season and stir

on one foot

And dance.

Sometimes the ground is not firm.

Sometimes no one

has stood this ground before

—Melanie Kaye  1977