Su Ertekin-Taner

Su Ertekin-Taner is a 16-year old actress, writer, journalist, singer, and student at The Bolles School. She comes from a Turkish family and echoes her Middle Eastern identity in her writing. She began poetry at the age of thirteen when she barely knew the meaning of language. Now, she is an aspiring writer and English teacher. She started her pre-career as a writer with local poetry contests. In time, she was able to share her poetry with the public through winning/published poems in the Jax Poetry Contest as well as receiving multiple awards from the collective Florida Times Union, Scholastic Art and Writing Contest, and the Florida Scholastic Press Association for her poetry, prose, and journalism. Through her poetry, she invokes themes of women’s bodies, sexuality, and identity. She is currently interning at Women Writing for (a) Change among completing summer writing in her free time. She hopes to use her experiences in the publishing world to impact and raise the voices of women and bring a sense of unity to herself, her coworkers, and clients.

One Woman Show

Within an exhibit of her “One Woman Show” show, Yoko Ono decided to replace traditional art
with an exhibit in which spectators were allowed to cut off pieces of her clothing on a stage. The
piece is currently housed in MoMA.

Scissors spare her body
When they cut through her clothes
But her exalted shoulders tell us she was
never afraid of blades
marvel at how her hands frisk
Up and down her body trying to hold together
Tethers of clothes that
Weren’t meant to fit

To be bare is much more comfortable than
To hold clothes up
with hands that have felt
The luxuries of oil
And emeralds
And saffron

Her hands are parents to the wild children
Of her body
She knows that her bones will be sold so she clings to them:

The graceful crease in the brow
Of her elbow from old age or
Shadows
Hands that I imagine have spiraled
Through the interiors of leather
Gloves
And clung to gasoline pumps
Legs that cross
One
Over
The other
Like how she sits when she attends meetings
And avoids young
Heathens

Her hands grip fishnets and corsets
Of cotton and satin
Although she’d rather not use them
She argues,
Passivity is to be clothed