Sunday, June 8, 2014

Judy Grahn on Action

I have been very struck by a passage about the lesbian poet Judy Grahn, in a book I am reading about resisting assimilation (reference below). I simply cannot agree with her more - involved in the Women's Spirituality movement as she was or is, perhaps she has an instinct for creating reality in accordance with will. All acts of love & pleasure are my rituals, in deed!
'Judy Grahn, the great lesbian poet, was once asked what she might regret about her pioneering work as artist & activist. She said she regretted all the women she had not been able to sleep with & to love. You can't help - in these days when we duck stones thrown by those who have been washed in the blood of the lamb, those without sin - being struck by the enormous generosity of Grahn's statement & by her confidence that her queer loving was a contribution she could make to the lives of oppressed women. Some might nervously titter at this, as if Grahn were mistakenly making something grand out of the trivial, narrow queer sexual connection in the context of wider political issues of violence gainst women, etc. But by making our queerest erotic responses visible, in sexuality & in resistance to war, racism, economic deprivation - in all aspects of the struggle for a better world - we can contribute to the liberation of everyone.' (Ferd Eggan: Dykes & Fags Want Everything: Dreaming with the Gay Liberation Front. In Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore (editor): That's Revolting!: Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation (New Revised & Expanded Edition). Soft Skull Press, Brooklyn, 2008, pp. 15-16.)
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