POETRY MONTH FEATURED POET: LEE LALLY

(Photo of Lee Lally by Michael Lally)

Lee Lally only published one chapbook of poetry, These Days, but it had a strong impact and I still treasure my copy. In the early 70s she was married to another activist and poet, with whom she had two children, before she came out and became a leader in the DC lesbian community. Her chapbook was published by Diana Press. She later again had a male lover. According to one bio, “Lee's enjoyment of life's pleasures sadly ended, however, when she became the unfortunate victim of medical malpractice while undergoing surgery, and wound up in a coma for six years, before finally passing away on March 3rd, 1986.” Below is one of her most-quoted poems:

NIGHT NOISES
for Jane

You woke from a dream
the revolution
in the streets
calling you out.

I had to tell you
the noises were not in your dream.

The army of lovers
was saying goodnight
at the foot of the stairs.
Loud sounds.
It was the revolution.
You were not sleeping
or dreaming.

© Lee Lally, from "These Days" by Diana Press, 1971

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LOLCATS WEEKLY ROUND-UP 12 APRIL 2011: DEDICATION ARRAY

Here's the weekly best of what I've gleaned from I Can Has Cheezburger efforts. This week I'm dedicating certain LOLCats to particular readers as indicated.

[For Christina]

[For M]

[For the moms of teenagers]

[For Therry]

[For Donna]

[For Ian]

[For Julie, Sarah Beth, et al]

[For Win]

[For little gator]

[For Nancy]

[For Sheldon]

[For Kat the preschool teacher]

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POETRY MONTH FEATURED POET: CHRYSTOS

During the fight against the Briggs Initiative, I had the chance to hear many legendary lesbian poets and writers, among them Chrystos. One bio states “Chrystos (born 7 November 1946) is a Menominee rights activist and poet. Prior to being published, she worked as a home caretaker, and an activist for Turtle Mountain Band of Chipewa, Norma Jean Croy (involved in a firefight with police), and Leonard Peltier. Born in San Francisco, United States, Chrystos is a Lesbian- and Two-Spirit-identified writer who focuses on themes revolving around the violence that adjoins everyday life in many urban areas. She also tries to incorporate an awareness of universal currents in her works, introducing a diverse mixture of characters and ideas. Her first published work, Not Vanishing, concentrates on a Native American woman and the environment she returns to after work, a life shielded from mainstream cultural understanding.” The prose poem below is a sardonic look at the white stupidity which encourages denial regarding the European theft of North America.

ANTHROPOLOGY

We have been conducting an extensive footnoted annotated indexed & complicated study of the caucasian culture hereafter to be referred to as the cauks for ease in translation.

The most important religious ritual, one central to all groups, is the mixing of feces & urine with water. This rite occurs regularly on a daily basis & seems to be a cornerstone of the culture's belief system. The urns for this purpose are commonly porcelain, of various hues, although white is the most frequently used. The very wealthy rulers have receptacles of carved onyx or malachite with gold-plated fixtures. We have been unable to determine what prayers are said during this ritual because of its solitary nature & the fact that the door to the prayer room is always shut.

The main function of the majority of non-city dwellers is the production of an object called a lawn. Numerous tools for the cultivation of this lawn are sold in the marketplaces. It appears also to have a sacred character, as no activity occurs on it & keeping short green & square is a constant activity.

The main diet of the culture is available from pushbutton machines or orange plastic small markets & was found by our researchers to be completely inedible. It is truly amazing what the human animal can subsist on.

Another prominent feature of the cauks is the construction of huge monuments built in clusters in the villages. These are not living quarters but are used about five days of the week for a ritual involving papers which appear to be sacred, given the life or death quality with which they are handled. The papers are passed about, often with consternation & eventually cast away when the spell is complete.

The mechanisms for healing disease appear to our eyes to be woefully complex & at the same time, inadequate. People who are seriously ill are quarantined in jails of pale green or white & often used to feed machines which appear to run on human blood.

Children who are born deformed in any way are usually confined to jails built for the purpose. The elderly are also jailed, there being no value system of respect for them. Those passing through transitions are called "crazy" & also jailed. Animals from distant lands again are jailed. In fact, there is some discussion of an alternative theory of central religious belief -- that the actual spiritual purpose of the culture, is to jail as much as possible. Extensive use of fences is the key argument for this theory.

Our data is as yet incomplete. We hope by 1992 to have a more comprehensive overview, at which time a traveling exhibition of artifacts (including exhumed bodies to illustrate their burial practices) will tour for the education of all. Their attitude toward all non-cauk peoples is extremely hostile & violent. Many of our researchers have been massacred and yet, in the interests of science, we persevere.


© Chrystos, from "Dream On", by Press Gang Publishers, 1991.

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POETRY MONTH FEATURED POET: HEATHER BURMEISTER

In 1994-ish an Italian-Texas dyke cook named Lisa took a tiny inheritance and started a café in South Austin called Forray’s. Remember Forray’s, y’all? It had maybe half a dozen tables, a long counter, limeade that restored electrolytes, and best eggs ever. I more or less lived there.

On Sunday afternoons there was a wimmin's poetry open mic, and that was where I began reading my work in public. And it’s where I met the magnificent Heather Burmeister, whose verse always reached out and grabbed us by the effin’ throat. Because of that experience, I was emboldened to read at my first AIPF open mic, at the old Electric Lounge, where I had a five minute slot doled out by a cast-iron timekeeper who cut the mic if folks ran over.

It was unbelievably hard to face a crowd of strangers and give voice to my new, untried stuff. I was sweating so much I felt basted. I don’t remember the audience reaction. I fled outside, where Heather found me and started to tell me I’d done okay. I leaned over and puked in the parking lot, lightly spattering her white converse high-tops that she had decorated with markers. She backed up a little but grinned her lop-sided way and told me to keep on trying, it got easier.

She was maybe 21 years old, and already had a lifetime of experience tucked away under her spiky hair. She eventually was taken on by Ntozake Shange for a mentorship, which surprised none of us. She has stayed real, and kind, and smarter than most folks you’ll ever meet. Here are my two favorites of hers from the Forray’s era:

ON WRITING

this is the way I sing
this is the way I photograph
and this is the way I keep dead people alive
this is the way I remember what I might forget
and this is the way I report my history
my story my lazy eavesdropping
what I find in my line
of vision


ACTION

I am taking action against fear
I turn on the lights
I open my eyes
I light another cigarette and
sit up all night listening for him


© Heather Burmeister, 1995

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POETRY MONTH FEATURED POET: JAN CLAUSEN

(Jan Clausen photo by Joanna Eldredge Morrissey, ©2008)

Jan Clausen came out with a literary splash, and then “went back in” with a painfully public reverb. She is one of us I think about when I argue that to claim sexual orientation MUST be genetically deternined is not only inaccurate but disrespectful to all the smart, loving people who alter their sexual identity more than once in their lives. It’s not linear and it’s not determined by hormones. Human beings are more fluid than that, and have invented culture to reflect that fluidity.

In 1976, Clausen (along with Elly Bulkin, Irena Klepfisz, and Rima Shore) founded the important Conditions, “a magazine of women’s writing with an emphasis on writing by lesbians.” She remained co-editor until 1980. To my mind, however, the most significant work by Clausen remains A Movement of Poets (1981) in which she outline how feminism, especially lesbian-feminism, was a social movement led by and rooted in poetry. This long essay is worth re-reading regularly and is available online thanks to the Lesbian Poetry Archive.

Below is the title poem from her groundbreaking first volume “After Touch”:

AFTER TOUCH

after late evenings
filled with women

after talk
or touch

after a song by janis joplin
and a woman's body in my arms
quite by accident, swaying
and slowly stepping in a dance
like those dances of high school
back at the dawn of sex

after kissing my friends
a safe goodbye at the door

after the long ride
underground/under mind
and the transfer, the platform
desolate and calm
with waiting men
lounging in seats
or closing their eyes, free,
free to doze
or accost me as they please

and the cab ride or terror
five blocks home from the station

after hot showers, hot chocolate
and books

i lie down in bed
beside the dark shape of a man
thinking of women

not wanting masturbation
that old ploy
my clitoris fooled,
rubbed, drugged, bribed
into submission
when it's my whole body
woman-hungering, aches

i remember now a childhood story
of a man of the last century
who drove a team of horses
forty miles through a blizzard
to bring back wheat
for his starving midwestern town

and how, when he lived,
when he at last lay down
in his own safe bed
his fingers, itching and burning,
his tingling feet
kept him awake all night

and he was glad. the pain
meant they would thaw, meant
he would dance, chop wood,
hold wagon reins again

i am a lesbian


© Jan Clausen, from "After Touch", Out & Out Books, 1975

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POETRY MONTH FEATURED POET: MARY MACKEY

Mary Mackey first swam into my ken during 1980 when one of her prose comedic books was read aloud on KPFA during the Morning Reading, a show I was addicted to as I ran my delivery route all over San Fran. I discovered she also wrote kick-ass poetry; in fact, she writes just about every genre. Here are two of my favorites from an early volume:

HOW DID YOU GET THROUGH

how did you get through your childhood?

I rode the subways
for hours
not going anywhere
not watching the people
not looking out the window
just riding

how?

I hid in closets
and opened my eyes
I could make the dark
turn colors
blue, red, violet
I hid behind the coats
they looked like the skins
of giants
I hid behind the couch
and put my hand
between my legs
I hid under the bed
and blew at balls of dust

how did you get through?

I climbed a sugar maple
up top
where the limbs were rotten
I hung onto the bark
like a locust shell

how did you survive?

by not being found

who were you?

they never told me.

how did you get through?

I haven't yet.


© Mary Mackey


GRANDMOTHER POEM

Sometimes in my dreams
I still see
my Kentucky grandmother
thin, strong, and hungry
holding her egg money
out to me
saying:
buy land, Mary
buy land
buy land while it lasts
they stopped making it

© Mary Mackey, both poems from "Split Ends" by Mama's Press, Oakland CA, 1974

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POETRY MONTH FEATURED POET: ANA CASTILLO

(Ana Castillo portrait by Margaret Randall)

I confess, I first checked out Ana Castillo’s poetry because I’d heard gossip that she had an affair with Cherrie Moraga. I still don’t know if the rumor is true, and I don’t care. My Father Was A Toltec blew me away, poem after poem. Here’s one that demonstrates her ability to use only a few sentences to paint a complete family biography and to make your blood boil.

SATURDAYS
c. 1968

Because she worked all week
away from home, gone from 5 to 5,
Saturdays she did the laundry,
pulling the wringer machine
to the kitchen sink, and hung
the clothes out on the line.
At night, we took it down and ironed.
Mine were his handkerchiefs and
boxer shorts. She did his work
pants (never worn on the street)
and shirts, pressed the collars
and cuffs, just so –
as he bathed,
donned the tailor-made silk suit
bought on her credit, had her
adjust the tie.

“How do I look?”
“Bien,” went on ironing.
That’s why he married her, a Mexican
woman, like his mother, not like
they were in Chicago, not like
the ones he was going out to meet.

© Ana Castillo, from “My Father Was A Toltec”, W.W. Norton & Co., 1995

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