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EMMA GOLDMAN
A little woman with a little truth, a little woman only a few feet high, triumphant, lights the way:
A vast state with a vast lie, a vast state filling the space between two oceans, defeated, blocks the way:
A little dream with a little torch flames across the earth forever:
A vast obstruction with a vast mistake, standing before it, throws a shadow for a day.
The Conservator 20 no. 2 (April, 1909): 26.
EMMA GOLDMAN
Blow, blow, blow! Toot! Toot!
Hot air, warm air, stagnant air, foul air.
Howl and kick, kick and howl. A musty redness and a moldy riot. Bombs and violence, tumultuousness and trouble, anarchy and an absence of baths.
There is an ocean of talk with scarlet fog and crimson waves.
Down with everything!
- K. L. Roberts, “Cubist Poems (After Gertrude Stein): Emma Goldman,” Life 70 no. 1817 (August 23, 1917): 317.
EMMA GOLDMAN
How should they appraise you,
who walk up close to you
as to a mountain,
each proclaiming his own eyeful
against the other’s eyeful.
Only time
standing well off
shall measure your circumference and height.
- Lola Ridge, Sun-up, and Other Poems, (New York: B. W. Huebsch, 1930): 90.
A TRIBUTE
Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman
Are in prison,
Although the night is tremblingly beautiful
‘And the sound of water climbs down the rocks
And the breath of the night air moves through multitudes and multitudes of leaves
That love to waste themselves for the sake of the summer.
Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman
Are in prison tonight,
But they have made themselves elemental forces,
Like the water that climbs down the rocks:
Like the wind in the leaves:
Like the gentle night that holds us:
They are working on our destinies:
They are forging the love of the nations:
. . . . . . . . . . .
Tonight they lie in prison.
- Josephine Bell, “A Tribute,” The Masses 9 no. 10 (August, 1917): 28.