a found poem by Diane Kendig
derived from the article “Half the World Has a Clitoris: Why Don’t Doctors Study It?” by Rachel E. Gross, The New York Times, October 17, 2022
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Anatomy of the Clitoris and Penis—3D Model available from Etsy. |
Compare the vulva
to a small town in the Midwest.
Doctors tend to pass through it
barely looking up
on their way to their destination,
the cervix and uterus.
If the vulva…is
an underappreciated city
the clitoris is
a local roadside bar
…a deep structure,
made up largely
of erectile tissue
reaching into the pelvis
encircling the vagina.
Documented injuries to the clitoris
could be prevented…
if doctors just spent more time
getting to know the clitoris,
…intimately bound up
in female pleasure and orgasm,
not high on medicine’s priority list.
[One urologist] recalled that
in medical training
the clitoris barely made
a cameo.
The medical textbook
Last’s Anatomy omitted
the clitoris entirely.
Descriptions of the penis went on for pages.
Diane Kendig is the author of five poetry collections. Her latest is Woman with a Fan. Her writing has appeared in J Journal, Wordgathering, The New Verse News, Valparaiso Review, and other journals. She ran a prison writing workshop in Ohio for 18 years, and now curates the Cuyahoga County Public Library weblog, Read + Write.