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We talk with V, formerly known as Eve Ensler about her collection of essays and poems, Reckoning.

Then in honor of Black History Month, we listen back to my 2019 interview with DaMaris Hill about her narrative in verse, A Bound Woman Is A Dangerous Thing: The Incarceration Of African-American Women From Harriet Tubman To Sandra Bland.

Writers Voice— in depth conversation with writers of all genres, on the air since 2004.

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I sometimes wonder, is it harder to go through violence or to witness violence? Is it harder to see those that you love go through a terrible experience or to actually go through it yourself? I think sometimes they’re equally painful, but I think I’ve also had this incredible privilege and honor to travel this world and to sit with women across this planet who told me their stories, shared their deepest secrets with me, opened their hearts to me, so I could be part of the listening part of the receiving of those stories. And you know, at times it’s been very, very hard. But I also feel I’ve also been privy to those women transforming that pain into so much beauty, so much wisdom, gardens and healings and organizations and struggle that has grown into this massive global movement.

V
When Eve Ensler first put on her play The Vagina Monologues, she set off a reckoning on the part of women all over the world with the violence and oppression that they had experienced at the hands of a patriarchal system.

She went on to meet with women victims of the violence of war—in Kosovo, Congo and elsewhere—and hear their stories of horrific abuse. But also to witness their courage and their creation of communities of resilience.

Then Ensler came to a reckoning of her own—with the horrific abuse she had suffered as a child as the hands of her father. We spoke with her about her book about that personal reckoning, The Apology, in 2019.

Now, she’s renamed herself “V”—her “freedom name”, as she calls it— and she’s come out with Reckoning, a powerful collection of writings that sum up the personal and political reckonings with patriarchy she has been making throughout her long career.

Listen to our 2019 interview with V about The Apology

DaMaris Hill
Back in 2019, we spoke with poet and author DaMaris Hill about her narrative in verse, A Bound Woman Is A Dangerous Thing: The Incarceration Of African-American Women From Harriet Tubman To Sandra Bland. In honor of Black History Month, we replay that interview.