In 2011, the U.N. declared October 11th as the International Day of the Girl Child, honoring the efforts of the Day of the Girl, a youth-led movement in the U.S.

Elisabeth Hewer is a poet and author from South West England. Noted for her book Wishing for Birds, published in 2015.

To read Elisabeth Hewer’s poem “Here Are Girls Like Lions” click:

Here Are Girls Like Lions

by Elisabeth Hewer

Here are girls like lions,
here are girls like howling wolves.
Here are girls with such big teeth!
Here are girls who’ll play tug o’ war
with your heart or your wishbone
Or your throat, oh.

Oh, here are girls
with cold bright eyes and claws
like dragons. Here are girls who
can’t breathe air, only fire.
Here are girls who carry kindness
And katanas in their rucksacks
because they never know which they’ll need.

How do you tame girls with wildfire limbs?
How do you hold down girls with hurricane hands?

Oh you can’t. Humble hungerer,
you’ve just got to help them rise.

“Here Are Girls Like Lions” appears in the anthology There Are Girls Like Lions: Poems about Being a Woman, © 2019 – Chronicle Books