Hung Out To Dry by Melanie Joy (Ireland, 40)

​I think on the patriarchy
as I hang out laundry and
of the week
I went on strike
heavily pregnant
fed up with the
weighted task.
My husband forced then to
wash hang fold repeat
renamed the laundry room
‘The Magdalene’
I think of those poor women
sentenced to a life of laundry
with their babies taken away.

Melanie Joy makes sense of her world through poetry. Her poetry threads together her inner and outer landscapes. West Kerry where she calls home provides the perfect backdrop for her capricious moods. Since May 2023, she has received a four month mentorship bursary through her local Arts Council. She has had poems published in The Galway Review, Drawn to The Light Press, Smoke Magazine, on the Cloud Appreciation Society website and forthcoming with Dreich magazine, HDLM Magazine and The Poetry Breakfast.  Melanie has been invited to read poems from her first collection at Words by Water and Dingle Literary Festivals. ​