Essay: Sixteen Horny Women in Search of a Poet

Photo: Cherokee Mental Health: 100 Years of Serving Iowan’s [sic]

(One hundred years ago, some medical authorities warned that professional seamstresses were apt to become sexually aroused by the steady rhythm, hour after hour, of the sewing machine’s foot pedals.*) 

The above photograph, circa 1910-1920: sixteen horny women pose at their stations at a grubby sewing factory.

Right.

I once worked in a sewing factory – though I don’t recall becoming “sexually aroused.” I do remember being fired after one week of sewing misaligned baby sleepers, but arousal?

I don’t think so.

Winter 2004: still at work on Memoir Madness: Driven to Involuntary Commitment, I set aside the photo and continue writing and then...

“Psssst!”

Must be the wind. Ignore it.

“Jennifer, listen to us!” A chorus of women.

Now I’m hearing voices?

“Who are you?”

“We’re the horny women from the sewing factory.”

Nice touch of irony.

“Go away. I’m busy.”

“We need a poet.” I feel a ghostly tap on my shoulder. “You!”

“Find someone else. I’m not a poet.”

Perhaps an occasional poet, one or two poems a year – I’d starve if I had to depend on my poetic abilities for a living.

“You must give us a voice.”

Most writers would feel honored to be chosen by sixteen ghosts for such important work, but I don’t need it right now: my memoir burns hot across the page – I mustn’t lose momentum.

“We need you.”

“Why me?”

“Because you know.”

No fair. It’s sixteen against one.

For the next two months, I swat away my tormentors, but they, buzzing, droning bees, always return, hovering and demanding that I act as their spokeswoman.

These misinterpreted women have argued well; not only were they accused of being horny on the job, but also had to endure having bromide dropped into their drinking water – to rein in that run-amok sexuality.

But that’s all in the past, right? Women have it so much better now...

Grrrrrr.

January 2005: a ten-hour transatlantic flight from Frankfurt to Philadelphia. I’m a temporary captive of U.S. Airways and a tight airline seat. No laptop, my memoir inaccessible kilobytes on a CD.

The women return. “Aha!” they smirk. “Gotcha!”

No escape. I dig out scrap paper and pen; somewhere over the Atlantic, I write a first, second, and third draft, opting for free verse, wordplay, humor, and satire. Once I’ve created several drafts, I’m hooked.

I must revise.

Many years later, sixteen unknown women, long dead, have finally found their collective voice. “Horny Women at the Sewing Factory” has found a home here on “Why I Write.”

As writers, how often have we lamented the insidious blank screen, the dreaded writer’s block? Inspiration is a gift, even when it drops in at inconvenient times, and shouldn’t be denied. Listening to my persistent muses has paid off: a rejuvenated writing life.

My momentum hasn’t suffered at all.

Horny Women at the Sewing Factory: the poem

_________________________________________________

*From: Cherokee Mental Health: 100 Years of Serving Iowan’s [sic]

Note: Originally this essay was titled “Fourteen Women in Search of a Poet,” but after I blew up the photograph, I found two more women, who seemed to be hiding from the camera. Interesting.

__________________________________________________

“Sixteen Women in Search of a Poet,” Copyright 2008 - Present, Jennifer Semple Siegel, may not be reprinted or reposted without express permission of the author.