Walker Woman

Julia Stein

The woman of the title, borrowed from pioneering Southwestern writer Mary Austin, provides Stein an image of one who “came and went about our western world,” establishing a saving relationship with the land.  The urban poet grapples with the themes of her life: her dying father, her adjunct teaching position, her beautiful but troubled students, as well as the South Central Los Angeles riots and a variety of natural disasters.  This is personal poetry with an ecofeminist flavor.

You’ve lived in Smash Palace
Your daddy smashed you up,
walked out one day and never came back.
Twenty years later you live in
Smash Palace with a man who beats you,
another one smashed up as a child.

I pleaded with you to leave.
Months later you’re still there
tell me it’s better but he tried
to strangle you.  You say it’s all your fault.
What will it be next time?
Your arm?  Your leg?  Your life?

I can’t stand to see this.
I’m your friend.  Believe me,
there’s a door to Smash Palace.
After you go through it
there’s a whole world outside.
All you have to do is leave.
             —“Smash Palace”

5½ x 8½ inches • 61 pages • ISBN 0-9705344-4-2 • $9.95