Description
Poetry. Literary Nonfiction. Fiction. Drama. LGBTQIA Studies. Women's Studies. Compiled in one book for the first time, featuring both new and out of print pieces, the contents of THE JUDY GRAHN READER span four decades of work by the prominent writer and activist. This volume contains writing from every phase of Judy Grahn's career, including poems from all of her major poetry collections, such as "The Common Woman," "A Woman is Talking to Death," and the previously unpublished "Mental"; a number of her groundbreaking essays ("Writing from a House of Women" and the newly revised "Ground Zero: The Rise of Lesbian Feminism," among others); as well as selected fiction and the full-length play The Queen of Swords. As Judy Grahn's writing continues to be relevant in today's social, political and cultural climate, this comprehensive volume gathers the varying strands of her writing and makes visible the tremendous scope of her ongoing contribution as a feminist thinker, activist, and literary artist.
"Judy Grahn is the direct inheritor of that passion for life in the woman poet, that instinct for true power, not domination, which poets like Barrett Browning, Dickinson, H.D., were asserting in their own very different ways and voices."—Adrienne Rich
"Judy Grahn has done more to create a women's literature than any other writer in the past half century."—Ron Silliman
Author Bio
Judy Grahn is an internationally known poet, writer, and social theorist. She grew up in a working-class home in New Mexico. Seeking options not available in her small-town community of origin, she broke away and joined the Air Force. She was given a "blue discharge" (named for the blue paper on which these letters were printed) from the Air Force because she was a lesbian. This experience galvanized Grahn into public ownership of her lesbianism, into the writing of poetry, into lesbian activism, and into the project of publishing lesbian literature. She co-founded the Women's Press Collective in Oakland, California, in 1969; using a barrel mimeograph machine, the WPC published the work of Grahn and other lesbians, including Pat Parker, Willyce Kim, and more. The WPC edition of Grahn's book Edward the Dyke and Other Poems appeared in 1971. Other poetry collections include The Common Woman (1969), A Woman Is Talking to Death (1974), The Queen of Swords (1987), and Love Belongs to Those Who Do the Feeling (2009). Aunt Lute published a collection of Grahn's work in 2009, THE JUDY GRAHN READER. In addition to her poetry, Grahn has written extensively of what it means to be a lesbian and a lesbian writer in books including Another Mother Tongue: Gay Words, Gay Worlds (1984), Really Reading Gertrude Stein (1989), and Blood, Bread and Roses: How Menstruation Created the World (1993).
Author City: OAKLAND, CA USA