Conservation of Momentum

By Alicia Sometimes

I know it's a sexist thing to say, but women

aren't as good at making music as men… 

–Julie Birchill, former NME journalist and author

Momentum is a measurable quantity—

equal to the net force acting on it

Suzy Quatro, Leather Tuscadero

dented notes, fuzz chords buzz electric

bass with the thump against growling wood

her 1957 Fender Precision swinging off into the moon

Patti Smith, words seesawing in the dark

mouthpiece marvel with twisty sermons:

proto-punk, art rock, poet

Sister Rosetta Tharpe, guitar gospel gateway

her soul sublime sound a bolt back from above

Poison Ivy Rorschach & Kristy Wallace

strum & echo-theremin looping down spines

lungs adjusting to the fresh air

Ronnie Spector, dynamic swooning lullabies

showing up the forgettable critic who wrote:

they wear skin tight dresses revealing

their well-shaped

but not quite Tina Turner behinds

What she had to go through to hit the airwaves

       —Action equals reaction—

The Runaways: Joan Jett & Lita Ford, battalion of cool

Aretha Franklin: Queen of Soul outshining at least a billion suns

The iconic Kims: Gordon & Deal, bass staples

(young women practicing in the mirror just for their gait)

Christine Anu, surfing the stage as a scene stealer

Moe Tucker, be still our beating drumsticks

Salt-N-Pepa, creative hot, super smooth & utterly vivacious

Laurie Anderson, a soirée of syntax, balladeer, puppeteer of paragraph

—With any collision occurring in an isolated system

momentum is conserved—

Yoko Ono carving out lines inside the winter air

Beyoncé writing long into tomorrow & outselling the world

5,6,7,8s resonating twang jumping with joy

Karen Carpenter, subversive mainstream, happy home of melody

Poly Styrene, many wore vinyl boots for her out of respect

—Momentum is equal to the mass of an object

multiplied by its velocity—

Sade, the jolt of unapologetic awe

PJ Harvey, spilling everything out into the universe in A minor

Gillian Welch, crowds standing at her feet in the sweep of her lyric

Angie Hart with her honest voice in a wave of synthetic

Hope Sandoval, the soundtrack to everyone’s break up

Chrissie Hynde making it political

Tina Weymouth making it unusual

Kimya Dawson making it so completely unusual

And to those I've left out—soaring women of talent

anyone lost, bumped into the sidelines

Without all of you

rock is just some pebble

           waiting to be shined

Alicia Sometimes is an Australian poet, writer and broadcaster. She has performed her spoken word and poetry at many venues, festivals and events around the world. Her poems have been in Best Australian Science Writing, Best Australian Poems, Griffith Review, Meanjin and many more. She is director and co-writer of the art/science planetarium shows, Elemental and Particle/Wave. She is currently a Science Gallery Melbourne ‘Leonardo’ (creative advisor). Her TedxUQ talk in 2019 was about the passion of combining art with science. In 2020 Alicia won the Bruce Dawe Poetry Prize. www.aliciasometimes.com Twitter: @aliciasometimes