It’s not a straight line.
The First Time | “There is no hierarchy of oppressions.” Audre Lorde in all her powers, clarity
THIS WINTER. GIRD YOUR LOINS: Reading & Writing Through Poetry Is Queer with Kirby
“Oppressed peoples have been the same oppressed peoples my entire life: anything not straight, anything not conforming, anything not white.”
Sappho. Lorde. Clifton. Jordan. Rich. Nguyen. Brossard. Moure. Stein. Winterson. Michaels. Acker. Califia.
This is an extremely short list, but it will get you started, provide much needed strength, guidance, lust, and compassion for the daily.
I’ve had to come to a full stop here. Tears.
The special kinship often held between women and gays.
“There is no hierarchy of oppressions.” Audre Lorde in all her powers, clarity:
I was born Black and a woman. I am trying to become the strongest person I can become to live the life I have been given and to help effect change toward a livable future for this earth and for my children. As a Black, lesbian, feminist, socialist, poet, mother of two including one boy and member of an interracial couple, I usually find myself part of some group in which the majority defines me as deviant, difficult, inferior or just plain “wrong.”
I simply do not believe that one aspect of myself can possibly profit from the oppression of my other part of my identity. I know that my people cannot possibly profit from the oppression of any other group which seeks the right to peaceful existence. Rather, we diminish ourselves by denying to others what we have shed blood to obtain for our children. And those children need to learn that they do not have to become like each other in order to work together for a future they will all share.
“I simply do not believe that one aspect of myself can possibly profit from the oppression of my other part of my identity.”
Words. Given a voice. Body-shaping, life-changing words in a lifelong struggle of simply seeking to become and live the best of all possible lives and nothing less for the future of all.
It was this single sentence that first breathed air into the possibility that I don’t have to hate myself for being different.
Lorde, describing her own prose writings in 1982, said “They’re not academic; they’re a piece of my life-saving equipment.”
Lifesavers. All. That’s who these poets are and continue to be. What queer good fortune to have remarkable writers quicken us, take our hands, guide, give us a necessary push.
June Jordan, Who Look at Me:
I am stranded in a hungerland / of great pros- perity / shelter happens seldomly and / like an accident / it stops / No doubt / the jail is white where I am born / but black will bail me out... I trust you will remember how we tried to love / above the pocket deadly need to please / and how so many of us died there / on our knees... I am black alive and looking back at you.
Adrienne Rich, Heroines:
Exceptional / even deviant... The law says you can possess nothing / in a world / where prop- erty is everything... you give up believing / in protection / in Scripture / in man-made laws / respectable as you look / you are an outlaw.
Hoa Nguyen, Fortune Cookie No Fortune:
back then in Vietnam / “a mixed child was as good as dead” / remember the small wrapped cakes / they open to see a flower / wet eyelashes
Jeanette Winterson, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?:
I was a woman. I was a working-class woman. I was a woman who wanted to love women without guilt or ridicule... The Left has taken a long time to fully include women as independent, as equals—and no longer to enfold wom- en’s sexuality into a response to male desire. I felt uncomfortable and side-lined by what I knew of left-wing politics. And I wasn’t looking to improve the conditions of my life. I wanted to change my life out of all recognition.
“I wanted to change my life out of all recognition.”
A single line, the will to imagine, to not conform, the will to do something completely different. To somehow be in this world.
It’s not a straight line.
It was these women who showed me I had a place at the table. Not men. Gay or other.
And that table was not exclusive. And shouldn’t be so now.
And Sappho. Here from her wonderful twitterfeed @sapphobot:
And what excites my mind, / Your laughter glittering. So, / when I see you, for a moment, / my voice goes, because I / prayed this word: / I want / may you sleep on the breast of your delicate friend.
She blazes. Beckons. Coaxes. Lights our way.
from KIRBY Poetry is Queer Palimpsest Press Purchase / Audiobook
Lifesavers. All. That’s who these poets are and continue to be. What queer good fortune to have remarkable writers quicken us, take our hands, guide, give us a necessary push. - Kirby, Poetry is Queer
THIS WINTER.
GIRD YOUR LOINS: Reading & Writing Through Poetry Is Queer with Kirby
& it’s many queer outlaws/gay icons, poets, artists. A very rare opportunity to plumb the depths of a text & beyond with the author, including tons of new stories, sources, writing examples/tips and prompts. In Person & Online. Six Sunday afternoons beginning 14 Jan 2024.
IN PERSON & ONLINE
14, 21, 28 Jan / 11, 18, 25 Feb / 3-5PM Eastern
Required text: Poetry is Queer (additional materials provided).
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