Good afternoon everyone,

This week's Fem Fri is a tribute to cities, thanks to this tremendous poem by H.D. - the below is just an extract, click through for the whole thing. She is so good:

Cities

Though they sleep or wake to torment

and wish to displace our old cells—

thin rare gold—

that their larve grow fat—

is our task the less sweet?

Though we wander about,

find no honey of flowers in this waste,

is our task the less sweet—

who recall the old splendour,

await the new beauty of cities?

The city is peopled

with spirits, not ghosts, O my love:

Though they crowded between

and usurped the kiss of my mouth

their breath was your gift,

their beauty, your life.

H.D.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44134/cities

Now here's the fantastically named Blanche Lemco van Ginkel, who has had an outsized influence on both her city and - as the head of an architecture school - many others:

We learn that Lemco van Ginkel, as a young woman, talked herself into the office of the Swiss titan Le Corbusier, and wound up designing some of the Unité D’Habitation – among the most important buildings of the 20th century. Then she […] helped shape Montreal in meaningful ways before she became head of the architecture school at the University of Toronto.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/film/reviews/article-city-dreamers-portraits-of-four-women-who-shaped-the-world-we-live-in/

Love,

Alex.