#WonderWoman Poem By Carolyn Howard-Johnson: "My Woman-of-Steel Brand"

My mother Trudy Warren 8 months pregnant right after Hurricane Donna, Ft. Myers, FL

Perhaps I am remiss in not posting current national events and my relation to them as they happen. A couple weeks ago, I posted this poem by the extraordinary California poet, Carolyn Howard-Johnson about her inner "Wonder Woman." Now with Hurricane Irma bearing down on my hometown of Ft. Myers, I can't help but recall this picture my father took of my mother hauling away the multitude of fallen branches from the banyan tree we shared with our neighbors' yard. Eight months pregnant with my brother Monty. Mom played the piano the whole time the hurricane raged around our 2-story clapboard house. The tin roof blew off our neighbors' home behind ours. And they came into our house for protection during the calm of the Eye.

A toast to all Wonder Women everywhere. May your praises always be sung for your beautiful warrior spirits and loving ways.

You Think You Know Me Well

By Carolyn Howard-Johnson

I am Wonder Woman. You may have known 

me so long you remember

my original star-studded skirt

a la 1942 or still sigh over that skirt metamorphosed

to a bias-cut bikini singing

a patriot’s song to the female derrière
That would have been the same time 

it became hard to tell if I was born
to empower little girls or to mesmerize 

boys--the big ones and the small.

If that’s what you think

when you hear my name,
you’ve clearly not internalized
the idea of cruel waxing demanded by today’s
experts on grooming. (You should know

I didn’t do that. Somehow I was never convinced. 

Tights were another matter. I wore

them proudly--my woman-of-steel

brand-- lasso-wielding woman,

woman who bounced bullets
from magic cuffs, woman who didn’t need

D-cup implants
spilling out of her lamé bustier. 

If you’re more academic, you may think

of my Amazonian past, woman of bent 

bow fighting Trojans, memorialized 

on Greek urns, basalt on red or—or more ancient 

inverted potter’s clay
on black. That version goes back to Homer
and Arktinos of Miletus. But they couldn’t resist thinking 

my best weapon a shock of hair
revealing a beautiful face when the helmet was sent askew
in a battle hardwon.

I’ve been through other iterations.  Wagner’s version:
Brünnhilde in horned helmet (but still ample breasts).
Prell’s Cover Girl.
Clairol’s independent type 

who wouldn’t tell. 

You, young feminists! Do not smirk
Yes, you standing there, hands on hips,

in your wash ’n’ wear Spanx? I’ve lived 

with too much Miss

and not enough Ms to be interested
in new bigotry. I sculpted muscles
I wouldn’t have had without benefit
of gym (never noticing men need pulleys
and weights as much as I) and then watched
as my boobs drooped and upper
arms became vestigial
wings. Even Arnold
is no Mr. World these days.

I am Wonder Woman. Always was. Always
will be. I’ve mellowed. I’m first knowledge,
Scarlett Johannsson as Her. I’m Lucy.
the little brown woman squatting on Olduvai
creekbanks, and Scarlett--

again—silver-screen Lucy,
universal intelligence
in her mitochondria. I’m proud of stretch
marks, silver hair, generations of DNA
then to now. Get to know me.
Without me there is no humankind.

 --Carolyn Howard-Johnson

MORE ABOUT THE POET

Accepted for inclusion in Poets & Writers prestigious list of published poets, multi award-winning novelist and poet Carolyn Howard-Johnson is widely published in journals and anthologies. She is the recipient of the California Legislature’s Woman of the Year in Arts and Entertainment Award, and her community’s Character and Ethics award for her work promoting tolerance with her writing. She was also named to Pasadena Weekly’s list “Fourteen San Gabriel Valley women who make life happen” and was given her community’s Diamond Award for Achievement in the Arts. One of her poems won the Franklin Christoph poetry prize. She was an instructor for UCLA Extension’s world-renown Writers’ Program for nearly a decade. Learn more about all her books at

 http://bit.ly/CarolynsAmznProfile or http://howtodoitfrugally.com.

Her most recent poetry book, Imperfect Echoes, is a USA Book News Award finalist and was given the Bronze in Dan Poynter’s Global Ebook Awards. [Still in print and all proceeds are donated to Amnesty International!]