{"id":15944,"date":"2015-04-25T10:43:56","date_gmt":"2015-04-25T14:43:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/?p=15944"},"modified":"2020-11-16T19:01:53","modified_gmt":"2020-11-17T00:01:53","slug":"poem-for-the-cleaning-women-we-are-all-holy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2015\/04\/poem-for-the-cleaning-women-we-are-all-holy.html","title":{"rendered":"Poem for the Cleaning Women: &#8216;We Are All Holy&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Judith Malina by sloowtapes\" width=\"500\" height=\"400\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?visual=true&#038;url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F201231350&#038;show_artwork=true&#038;maxheight=750&#038;maxwidth=500\"><\/iframe><br \/>\nCourtesy of <a href=\"http:\/\/sloowtapes.blogspot.it\/2015\/04\/judith-malina.html\">Bart de Paepe&#8217;s Sloow Tapes<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>This is a historical recording by Judith Malina, who <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/04\/11\/theater\/judith-malina-founder-of-the-living-theater-dies-at-88.html?_r=0\">died<\/a> two weeks ago. I&#8217;ve transcribed the text the way it struck my ear, but its true power can&#8217;t be fully appreciated until you&#8217;ve heard her read the poem for yourself. &#8212; JH<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>every one of the cleaning women<br \/>\ndreamt of something else<br \/>\nwhen she was seventeen.<br \/>\nthey smile. they joke.<br \/>\nthey sigh in their smocks<br \/>\nand their comfy shoes.<br \/>\nthey try not to recall the plans<br \/>\nfor a miracle or a marriage,<br \/>\nall the schemes that each of them made<br \/>\nwith their young man in the marriage bed<br \/>\nof a house in the fields or a store in a city.<br \/>\nnow they are widowed or worn,<br \/>\nthe man drunk or dead or departed<br \/>\nor unable to make ends meet.<br \/>\nevery one of the cleaning women<br \/>\nhoped that the prince would come and<br \/>\nrescue her<br \/>\nfrom the pail and the wringer.<br \/>\nthe fairytale promised that the girl<br \/>\nwho sat by the Singer&#8217;s was to be clothed in splendor,<br \/>\ninherit the kingdom.<br \/>\nslowly that dream wore down.<\/p>\n<p>when i was eighteen<br \/>\nand worked in the laundry<br \/>\ncounting the dirty wash,<br \/>\ni dreamed that the prince would come &#8212;<br \/>\nand he came &#8212;<br \/>\nand that my talent and ardor<br \/>\nwould rescue me from lifting five napkins,<br \/>\neight pieces underwear<br \/>\nrescue and lead to a privileged life.<br \/>\nand i was the fortunate one<br \/>\nleading a privileged life<br \/>\nrescued from smock and broom.<br \/>\nand now my friends ask me<br \/>\nwhy i&#8217;m so sad<br \/>\nwhen i see the cleaning women laughing<br \/>\nas though they were nothing. &#8216;oh you and your<br \/>\njewish guilt.&#8217; or &#8216;somebody has to do it.&#8217;<br \/>\nbut every one of the cleaning women<br \/>\ndreamed that it wouldn&#8217;t be she.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Courtesy of Bart de Paepe&#8217;s Sloow Tapes This is a historical recording by Judith Malina, who died two weeks ago. I&#8217;ve transcribed the text the way it struck my ear, but its true power can&#8217;t be fully appreciated until you&#8217;ve heard her read the poem for yourself. &#8212; JH every one of the cleaning women [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":15951,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18,20,17],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-15944","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-literature","8":"category-media","9":"category-political-culture","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/Judith-Malina-SloowTapes-1.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-49a","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15944"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43058,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15944\/revisions\/43058"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}