The internet has seen a number of great tributes during this year’s Women’s Month (and yesterday’s Women’s Day). We’ve seen the inventors, the astrophysicists, the human rights supporters, the Nobel Prize winners. We saw articles on inspiring speeches and empowering quotes.

In line with these, here are 8 women who used words as instruments to promote empowerment. They all make use of spoken word poetry, which is performance-based storytelling. Give them a listen—you just may be on your way to a new obsession. Hear these women talk about being an artist, a wife; of failed loves, of war, of abuse, of depression, of love–and everything in between.

I was holding my heart in the palms of my nervous hand
My heart had 200 broken windows, glass covering the floor
and amazing light in almost every room

I’m actually glad that you were bold and brave enough to call my house.
so that we can discuss this woman to woman,
and try to work some of these things out.
So we can compare notes on some dates and times
and try to figure out some of his tired. ass. lies.

If you grow up the type of woman men want to look at,
You can let them look at you.
But do not mistake eyes for hands,
Or windows for mirrors.
Let them see what a woman looks like.
They may not have ever seen one before.

We are not your mothers
and are not meant to be
It is not our responsibility to raise you into respectful beings
you have been weaned from the breast of a woman for years

Yet you come to us
wounded and half filled with promises you can only keep half the time
Trying to suckle our sense of self dry

Friends, fans, artists must meet
Which one are you, which one is me?
Friends, fans, and artist must meet
Which one are you, which one are me?

I’m a small girl
but no one
not even you
love with kill me.

Yesterday, I spent 60 dollars on groceries,
took the bus home,
carried both bags with two good arms back to my studio apartment
and cooked myself dinner.
You and I may have different definitions of a good day.

I do not know how bad a life has to break in order to kill.
I have never been so hungry that i willed hunger.

I have never been so angry as to want to control a gun over a pen.
not really.

Even as a woman, as a Palestinian, as a broken human being.
Never this broken.

What do you think of these poems? Inspiring, aren’t they? Share your thoughts in the comments below!