In case you missed it, one of the moments at the Women’s March on Washington that drew the biggest applause came when Ashley Judd read a poem slamming Donald Trump for his blatant misogyny. It was written in the voice of a “nasty woman” who had had more than her fill of Trump’s “Electoral College-sanctioned hate speech,” and reminded him that “our p*ssies ain’t for grabbing.”
When Judd took the stage, she told the crowd that the poem she was about to read had been written by Nina Donovan, a 19-year-old poet from Franklin, Tennessee; a suburb of Nashville. Donovan told The (Nashville) Tennessean that she was inspired to write the poem after Trump infamously called Hillary Clinton “such a nasty woman” at the last presidential debate. She was one of many women who were hopping mad by that blatantly sexist comment.
Donovan felt she had to respond in the best way that a poet responds–by fighting with her words. As she saw it, “I reclaimed it.” She debuted her poem, entitled simply “Nasty Woman,” at the 2016 edition of State of the Word, a yearly competition featuring the Nashville area’s top writers and poets. Watch her perform it here.
Judd, who is also a Franklin resident, was on hand for that performance. Donovan told the (New York) Daily News that when she bumped into Judd, they immediately started talking about having Donovan come to Washington for the Women’s March. Eventually, Donovan agreed to have Judd read a slightly less vulgar version in Washington.
Donovan, who was born in Long Island before moving to Tennessee, was on hand for the Women’s March on Nashville. She sees Trump, whom she derided as “a man who looks like he bathes in Cheeto dust,” as “the physical form of everything I was saying in my poem.” However, she looked at the large crowd–more than 15,000 strong–and believed there was a lot of reason for hope, since “if we keep fighting, we can all be equal one day.”
Needless to say, Donovan is a very brave woman. While the Nashville suburbs have turned an unrecognizable shade of red, Franklin and surrounding Williamson County did so a lot sooner than most of the rest of the area. It is one of the richest counties in the nation, with a profile similar to those of other affluent suburban counties in the South–very Republican, with a strong tinge of social conservatism. It hasn’t supported a Democrat for president since 1976, and has only gone Democratic once since 1964. Trump carried it by a punishing 64-29 margin.
In other words–this is an area where, as the saying goes, Democrats get shot. But this is one nasty woman who isn’t letting the wingnuttery get her down. Bravo, Nina. And bravo to Judd for discovering her.
(featured image courtesy Nina Donovan via [New York] Daily News)
