About Amy Mahoney
Amy Mahoney is a potent and raw poet and performer whose stage presence is both gorgeous and eerie. She is a stand-up pop-culture philosopher with a commitment to social justice that blends a working class perspective with years of training in her craft. Amy has served as president of the inaugural board of directors at Bent Writing Institute. She has performed solo and group shows at Bumbershoot, Vancouver's Under the Volcano Festival, the Seattle Poetry Festival, and many other venues. Recordings from Amy's performance at the 2007 Seattle Poetry Festival can be found at the KNOCK website: knockjournal.org
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KNOCK is a literary arts magazine published twice each year at Antioch University Seattle. KNOCK looks at what's ahead in writing, drama, and the visual arts. We publish fiction, essays, poetry, plays, cartoons, and contemporary art, along with interviews with artists, writers, and activists, and excerpts from books and other media just released or forthcoming.
excerpt from DEMOCRACY
by Amy Mahoney
A young mother stands over the stove stirring greasy beef for hamburger helper. Before she leaves for her night job she calls out works from her daughters spelling list hanging on the refrigerator. INSUFFICIENT. I-n-s-u-f-f-i-n-t? Amy, come on, this is the fifth time we been through this list and you got that one right last time. My mother had a ninth grade education, as did her father. I was never tested for a learning disability. I was born to be a work, my education would not matter, it was sufficient for my class status.
DEMOCRACY d-e-m-o-r-a-c-y
I know how to spell it and I know what it means. A government in which supreme power is vested in the people. I vote, I want to believe it matters but I am suspicious of this choice. Maybe it's all just fixed to begin with, maybe we don't count. Maybe there is no difference, the lesser of evils and all that. The illusion of choice can be a powerful means to subdue the masses. When I'm asked "why aren't the Americans doing anything" I feel like a victim of my government and a perpetrator against the world. I can't adequately explain how I am neither and both.
My mother does not vote. I don't think she would ever think herself smart enough to do so. She was a dropout, a teen mom, a welfare lifer, a maid, a cook, a waitress a janitor and she changed bedpans as an untrained nurse's aid, just like her mother. My grandfather was career military. Except for a brief stink in a Montana coal mine, his whole life was spent in the service. Other family jobs include: landscaper, welder, mechanic. I come from a family of drop-outs; skilled and semi-skilled laborers.
SUBORDINATE s-u-b-o-r-d-i-n-a-t-e
I will honor my responsibility to what I know is fair and true and say that the working people of this nation, whether for or against the current administration, have been victims of plunder and pillage in the name of democracy.
My grandfather was 17 when he fought in World War II at the battle of Guadalcanal. He lied about his age because he needed a job...