women and their secrets

i found this picture of me breastfeeding in the hospital- such a strange time. i think this was probably the loneliest i've ever been. no one tells you how difficult it's going to be. well, anyway- i think this picture is art actually- for lots of reasons. look how hard i'm trying. i didn't know what was happening- i was entirely out of my body. people think sad stories are unacceptable in some way- perhaps it has to do with pulling your socks up, or not taking things too seriously. i don't know, drama right. but this was a sad story. and that's not to say that happiness didn't come from it. but all i really remember is how alone i felt, in all of it. women and their secrets.

An Important Moment In Sand Writing

Next Generation Poets 2014

1. Emma Hammond
2. Emma Hammond
3. Emma Hammond
4. Emma Hammond
5. Emma Hammond
6. Emma Hammond
7. Emma Hammond
8. Emma Hammond
9. Emma Hammond
10. Emma Hammond
11. Emma Hammond
12. Emma Hammond
13. Emma Hammond
14. Emma Hammond
15. Emma Hammond
16. Emma Hammond
17. Emma Hammond
18. Emma Hammond
19. Emma Hammond
20. Emma Hammond

under the skin

jonathan glazer said that he did not intend for his film under the skin to be a gender experience but a human one and i can absolutely see what he means. however i came out feeling that overall this is a film about women- to the point where i actually felt quite hurt by it.

this is not a bad thing though. the theme was hugely subtle- a little like a girl’s experience of misogyny itself. the film mirrored this feeling perfectly.

the man on the motorbike is the patriarch. he is the one who finds the alien a body in the first place (a dead prostitute?), he monitors her throughout the film- she appears to be working for him, using her sexuality to attract men, against men- and literally capturing them through desire. 

she is stealing men for him, he is in charge. it is a woman’s job to be desirable.

men are painted as easy to deceive, or in thrall to women- the man on the beach goes back into the waves to save his drowning wife, losing his own life in the process. scarlett johansson’s character is an alien, she is a predator and devoid of emotion, she literally empties men.

it is only when she becomes more human that the man on the motorbike becomes menacing toward her. being real instantly makes her fallible.

she can no longer empty men, she has no power because she has seen herself, she has inspected herself in mirrors. although she had no maternal feelings for the child on the beach, she feels for the man with the deformed face- who in some way becomes the child, wandering exposed in the grass.

she tries sensuality, first through food- which she can’t bear. she is ‘safe’ when she meets the man at the bus stop yet safety still leads to sex. the sex scene is perfect- what does she see by the light of the lamp? having a vagina, or not having a vagina- both things are construed as horrific.

so she runs away, we see her curled up in the tree tops- cosy. she is woken by a rapist, who pursues her through the woods. it’s like watching a deer getting run down- her clothes are ripped and it’s a truly terrible rape scene because it unfolds exactly in the way a woman imagines a rape to. 

the rapist rips her, he literally rips her up. then as she comes out of her skin we see she has always been an alien- she is not a human. women are something else, other- black underneath. he sets her on fire and the white snow turns to ashes.

gerda and kai

so james was a gardener but also a centaur and all other kinds of things. you know someone is dying but it never really makes any kind of sense.

james wanted to rewrite the snow queen with me, to turn it into a poem that he could act. i was too young to understand why we should have, and too caught up in myself. we were gerda and kai and didn't always trust each other. i think our hearts were hurt, but maybe that's just me trying to make it glamorous.

perhaps his fish and my archer got locked in a battle, but there was love in it too. james was from the woodlands just like me. there was magic running through him and stories and dancing.

i don't think i can get sad at death anymore. we spend most of our lives trying to lose our selves by being less terrible and death takes care of that nicely.

james has turned to light, or a wisp of mist on a morning field- you can only really laugh at the glitch. goodbye for now happy prince x

'Kai and Gerda sat down, holding each other by the hand; they both had forgotten the cold empty splendor of the Snow Queen, as though it had been a dream. The grandmother sat in the bright sunshine, and read aloud from the Bible: "Unless ye become as little children, ye cannot enter the kingdom of heaven."

And Kai and Gerda looked in each other's eyes, and all at once they understood the old hymn: 

"The rose in the valley is blooming so sweet,
And angels descend there the children to greet."

There sat the two grown-up persons; grown-up, and yet children; children at least in heart; and it was summer-time; summer, glorious summer!'