Club Des Femmes x Fringe! are hosting a screening of MADCHEN IN UNIFORM at Rio Cinema, Sunday 25 Sept, 3 pm. With an intro by CDF’s So Mayer + live drag performance from Georgeous Michael ?. Book your tickets!
MADCHEN is available on Blu-ray & DVD from BFI (UK) and Kino Lorber (US).
Sarah Lasoye is a poet, prison abolitionist and health justice campaigner from London. Her debut chapbook, Fovea / Ages Ago, is published by Hajar Press.
When you are fourteen, and a half
after Madchen in Uniform (1931)
your face may as well be your thumb
the way it presses into that dark ink
the way you are to print yourself
against anything you want
as proof that you want it
to stick or be stuck to
speechless and dizzy
off-balance and carved
against your own wanting
glinting and all of you brimming over
to dent or indent
– this is hunger
/
when finally the one you have drawn
from every vantage
appears sunprinted on the inside
of an eyelid – what a trick
there is no light without them and now
there will be no darkness – what profession
you know a voice is only heard
when elbowed out from a chorus
you do not yet know
this first splinter will lead to a loop
that this staircase is flat and insatiable
a trap and an undying chase
/
you are trying to put your gum
drained of all flavour
back inside the wrapper
its original case now too small
for what has been ravaged by you
fold up the small failure best you can
chewing gum dumpling spilling from itself
another chance will come along
lowering their gaze to meet you
and asking again if you are nervous
you learn there can be
no opaque answer to this question
yes / no / [evasion]
there you are, revealed