This sestina is written in the voice of a woman reflecting on how to survive in a male-dominated workplace.  She’s also raising a teenage daughter in a wild and beautiful place (Alaska) but sees how she too is already learning how male-dominated her own world is.  This poem is a hymn to survival and an exploration of how putting our bodies outside those male spaces can help us re-center our identities.

Emily Wall is a poet and Professor at the University of Alaska. She has six books of poetry, including Fig, Fist, and Flame, a chapbook series of persona poems in the voices of powerful women.  Emily writes in Douglas, Alaska.

W: emily-wall.com.
I: @EmilydWall
F: Emily Wall