the making of an activist poet
- Categories
- Book/Boek
- Creator
- Grahn, Judy
- Publish Year
- 2012
- Shelfmark
- VS 9 2012 - B
- Thesaurus
- dichters, lesbische vrouwen, lesbische en homobewegingen, LHBT, leefvormen, Verenigde Staten, 1960-1969, 1970-1979, 20e eeuw, autobiografie
- Description
- Growing up in New Mexico, the child of working-class Chicago parents, Judy Grahn hungered to connect with the larger world, to create a place for herself beyond the deprivations and repressions of small town, 1950s life. Refusing the imperative to silence that was her inheritance as a woman and as a lesbian, Grahn found her way to poetry and to activism. In the process, she emerged not only as one of the most influential figures of the gay women’s liberation movement, but as a poet whose vision has helped to give voice to long-unexplored dimensions of women’s political and spiritual existence. In telling her life story, Grahn reflects on the profound cultural shifts brought about by the women’s and gay rights movements of the 1960s and 1970s. The “simple” revolution she recounts involved not just the formation of new institutions (the Women’s Press Collective, Oakland Feminist Women’s Health Center, A Woman’s Place Bookstore), but the creation of whole new ways of living, including collective feminist households that cut through the political and social isolation of women. .Throughout, Grahn describes her involvement with iconic scenes and figures from the history of these years.