To celebrate Delilah outwitting man-kind,
Jezebel threw a raving party
After Miriam convened a midnight symposium
Which Eve inaugurated and spoke plenary at,
Ruth and Naomi - the forebearers of feminine solidarity were there;
Hagar spoke expertise from the biblical margins;
Rahab shared her lived call girl experience;
Esther presented her research ‘The Dialectics of Tamed Enactment’;
Lilith blighted the scriptured stories into oblivion, she who must not be named aspoke,
Followed by Mary’s becoming, being.
Rachel and Leah corroborated Dinah’s Me Too nemesis;
Deborah moderated the engaged backstreet audience
around a Model Female Nations moon-stone table.
Vashti reinstated the clan of founding sacrosanct matriarchs in the lead…
A new herstorical arrangement was thus
Sanctioned,
Ordained,
Legislated.
Jerin Anne Jacob is a Mumbai based poet, educator, researcher and social entrepreneur. A teacher of Literature and Language, she is currently also pursuing her doctoral research on feminist retellings of biblical narratives in India. Her works have been published or are forthcoming in Press Pause Press, EKL Review, Paper Dragon, Delhi Post and an anthology tentatively titled ‘Of Dry Tongues and Brave Hearts’.