As part of The Pixel Project’s Read For Pixels campaign, we interview authors and poets from genres as diverse as Science Fiction and Fantasy to Romance to Horror about why they support the movement to end violence against women and girls.
For Domestic Violence Awareness Month 2025, we present an interview with Read For Pixels poet Anna Bagoly who contributed her original poem who cares for these women? to our 1st charity poetry collection, UNDER HER EYE. Anna Bagoly (Ah-na BUH-goy) is Hungarian American and resides in the mountains of Western North Carolina. Her work immerses in sensation and imagery, blending poetry and creative nonfiction to create new forms. She is a writer, energy worker, teacher, and lover of all things water and forest.
Inspired to support The Pixel Project’s anti-violence against women work? Make a donation to us today OR buy our 1st poetry collection, UNDER HER EYE, that is published in partnership with Black Spot Books. All donations and net proceeds from book sales go towards supporting our campaigns, programmes, and initiatives.
1. Why is ending violence against women important to you and why did you decide to support The Pixel Project by contributing your poem who cares for these women? to UNDER HER EYE which is The Pixel Project’s first charity poetry collection published in partnership with Black Spot Books?
My poem who cares for these women? strikes the centre of questioning who is truly there for women experiencing domestic violence, and then particularly immigrant women. This poem is the centrepiece of my book project which explores my childhood, including the physical violence of my father. The cultivation of resources and safe spaces to be extended to women would have had a direct impact on my life had my own mother been able to gain access to them. And I was delighted to be able to submit this piece to UNDER HER EYE because there are seldom places where art about intense and vulnerable experiences is welcome. All beings are deeply influenced by women; they are how we come into existence. And to really create a world where women are inherently safe means to heal all the environments and spaces where every human being lives and grows.
2. What do you think poets can do to help with the cultural change needed to stop violence against women and girls?
I think the beautiful thing about art is how subjective the experience is to the reader. As the poet I can have an intention and desire for the piece, but after releasing it into the world, it depends entirely on who it’s received by. And some of the works in UNDER HER EYE reach readers that know exactly the feelings and situations that are being explored. Others have no similar personal experience, yet there is still this space where they get to learn something about both me, themselves, and the world. And as we share pieces that spread the truth of our individual lived experiences, compassion is raised across the board for all living beings. You cannot live a day in my shoes, but by reading something inspired by the greatest joy or the lowest low in my life, you learn.
3. Any final thoughts about why everyone should support stopping violence against women?
To imagine a world where women do not experience violence is a world where everyone receives much more love, compassion, understanding, and support. It scars not only the women, but the children—boys and girls—who then go on to have relationships, families, and make the choices that determine the future of our world. Women birth every being, and our society exists because of them. And the pain and violence in this society is due to the pain and misunderstanding of perpetrators’ childhoods. To begin in softness and gentleness at our roots gives not only humans but the entire living world the opportunity to flourish and thrive. If you’re able to hold every human being in your mind and heart as something to not be harmed, that easily transfers to animals and plants, which then alters the choices that are made in protecting the environment and its resources.
Listen to Anna read who cares for these women? here: