Kate MacAlister
Kate MacAlister is a poet, award-winning filmmaker, and feminist activist whose work explores the intersections of language, resistance, and the body. She holds an M.A. in Creative Writing from the Manchester Writing School and is currently undertaking a Ph.D. in Creative Writing at the University of Nottingham. Her doctoral research centers on creating a collection of poetry that positions the female body as a site of anti-patriarchal resistance and reproductive justice. Kate’s poetry has been widely published in literary journals across the globe. Her two full-length collections of feminist poetry are available through Querencia Press and Sunday Mornings at the River Publishing. A founding member of the poetry film collective C. Moss, she has written, directed, and produced two eco-poetry films that have garnered international acclaim and multiple awards. At the heart of her practice is the multilingual community arts and literature initiative Stimmen der Rebellion / Dengê Berxwedane / Voices of Rebellion, which she leads with passion and purpose. For over five years, Kate has facilitated poetry workshops for women and genderqueer people and serves as Editor-in-Chief of the project’s literary magazine.
Instagram: @kissed.by_fire
backyarder
“legal abortion kills illegal abortion”
“The unskilled abortionist’s methods work on the theory that an infection or dangerous substance will kill the fetus before it kills the woman. It can likely end in permanent disability and death.”
(Our Bodies, Ourselves 1971)
I went home with someone. I should have told someone.
I stretched out the night. There was flowering, my smile
did not return after washing their sheets with heartworms,
the threadcounts of unceremonious fates. I asked
a shadow behind their bed: would they leave me
at the mercy of my own mutilating hands? I looked
beneath the kitchentable, under the sink — over the counter
chemicals, soap, lye, the assumption, a theory, a rumour. The ghosts
I caught walking through my eyes, wailed towards the ceiling, afraid
that every closing flutter would etherize the hungry bloodhums
with a cloth rue-drenched, shoved deep down
my throat, to quiet the haunting. In case of a fraught blood line
how will I get back to my hard won home?
Is there someone I could call, send the location
of my trembling breaths, cramping legs, a ravine
uncontrollably shaking. I feel candleburned
inside, a shedding, my deadwood cavity, an aching
nest for a breaking wickerbird keeping me caged. I asked
the nightlight in the long long hallway if they will make me feel wicked.
I check the bathroom cabinets for obscene literature and sixpenny
pamphlets for working class women — they will know if to bury or scatter the ashes.
later we decided it is best not to tell my father.