Poetry for Suffrage
by Susanna Rich
Celebrating the Centennial of The Susan B. Anthony Amendment
Granting United States Women the Vote
In 1911, composer and suffragist Ethel Smyth, imprisoned in London’s Prison Holloway for her activism, raises her toothbrush like a baton to conduct fellow prisoners to sing her anthem: Shout! Shout! Up with your song! It wasn’t until 1928 that all British women could officially vote. It took over 72 years, from 1848 to 1920, to enfranchise United States women.
Shout! is a collection of Susanna Rich’s original poetry written from the points of view of core suffragist figures ranging from the 1848 Seneca Falls Woman’s Rights Convention and the 1920 Tennessee ratification of the Susan B. Anthony Amendment, to 2020 women “getting the vote,” in another sense. Specializing in writing historical poetry, Susanna transforms carefully researched material into four-dimensional, you-are-here experiences for readers and audiences. Her poetry promotes emotional depth and empathy for such persons as a suffragist’s child; an activist force-fed during a hunger strike; an African-American woman marching among 6,000 white women; a political candidate thwarted in “getting the vote” in the 21st century. As John F. Kennedy said at the inauguration of the Robert Frost Library, “When power corrupts, poetry cleanses.” Shout! brings out the hose, the brush, and the bucket.
