November verse 3: Woman with knife

The Emerging Artist and five others have a terrific exhibition currently at The Shop Gallery in Glebe.

There are raging female monsters, exquisite still lives, images of brightly wrapped babies, orthodox Jews and patriots, a beatific Greta Thunberg, a powerful portrait of a Wiradjuri woman, ceramic cotton-reel pendants with unsettling inscriptions, and three images of a woman with a knife, including this one:

November verse 3: Woman with Knife – Red
She's got a knife and she will use it
if she must. Not so much rage
as weariness has made her lose it.
No choice but to turn the page
on compromise, compliance, meekness,
millennia of other-cheekness.
Her right hand's ready for the fight.
Her left holds hidden treasure tight.
No harpy, lamia, sphinx or gorgon,
no trained assassin, hired gun,
or martial artist out for fun:
a new sound blast, a whole new organ
shakes the floor. How good's that frown?
Good enough to bring you down.