Red Poppy
For Marilyn Buck, political prisoner, who passed away after serving 25 years of an 80 year sentence.

On Veterans Day neighbors wore them
on their lapels.
Pristine plastic
Blood bright flowers
to honor the fallen, mostly men
except, of course, the women
and children. Collateral to the chaos
that puffed the chests
of men.
You and I are of an age
To remember those flowers
and how their presence
made backs straighten,
drew strangers together warming
their hands over stories of
honorable death.
Never wilting, faithless blaze
of color seduced them,
made death and honor
one
When, in truth, whether in a field
or a cage
the poppy is a sign of life.
Delicate, vulnerable, capable
of bringing a smile to your face
and remind us of peaceful things.
Where have all the flowers gone?
We puzzle at our own
destructive impulse,
turning flora into instruments
of isolation when all they ask
is that we honor them
honor life wild.

I know by now a lot of people are feeling Glee-full—the coverage has begun to saturate (and I say that being a Gleek, myself).  The over top response to the weekly musical show, “Glee,” took TVland by surprise and as with everything pop culture there comes a backlash.  Critics (mostly) have already started to pick apart elements as if they first imagined it was being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

What is most unique about the show is hardly ever commented on:  “Glee” is a mainstream, (not to mention FOX) television show that actually touches on significant ideas and issues!  bullying, teen pregnancy, disability, feminism and homophobia just off the top.

AND it has TWO out queer performers…one of whom who plays a queer student and the other plays a straight woman who perversely seems queer. Chris Colfer and Jane Lynch have, in one season, changed the face of television, picking up where “Ugly Betty” (sadly) left off.  Putting queer people in a cultural context that gives them resonance beyond the laugh track or their straight gal pals.

I am still waiting for the portrayal of a lesbian I can recognize (L Word was nice but not it for me.) on television.  The show that comes closest is “Exes and Ohs” on LOGO, funny and working class.

“Glee” in the meantime keeps cranking out the big musical numbers that remind me of the best days I had in high school; it lets Chris Colfer sing the high notes and Jane Lynch dress up like Madonna.  What could be bad!

Jane looked fabulous, by the way, at the National Center for Lesbian Rights annual gala on May 1!  Totally a lesbian I recognize.

In a side gallery of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

It was like waking in an Olga Broumas poem:

Colored girl surrounded by Greek marble

and repressed desires.  Or a surprise

—stumbling into my two muses

at a cocktail party.

You hardly expect to recognize anyone you know.

Each guest is so big and famous they look different

close up and out of context of book or picture

I was angry at the warrior holding Medusa’s huge head aloft,

as if the simple dismemberment was triumph.

How ‘boy’ not to notice that she’d

turned him to stone.

Eyes closed, Medusa looked at my cast down gaze,

a subtle undulation of the snakes around that head

and the soft turn of her mouth

pointed me toward the other.

The two here together—however captured—

Unbowed, unrepentant

There, Sappho supine. Hardness made soft like the Buddha

by the craft of draping stone, by the eyes—serene, searching.

Her feet outstretch from beneath her garments;

One the size of my arm.  Not the diminutive

or dainty thing biographers describe.

That bigness comforts me. One’s muse should be

supersize to channel our fancies

and stay in our sight.

Sappho lay back a short distance from Medusa

but always in relationship, the line of communication

a laser  between them.

Sappho, a warrior firm and shapely,

one hand on her breast knowing Medusa

always watched.

***

I know by now a lot of people are feeling Glee-full—the coverage has begun to saturate (and I say that being a Gleek, myself).  The over top response to the weekly musical show, “Glee,” took TVland by surprise and as with everything pop culture there comes a backlash.  Critics (mostly) have already started to pick apart elements as if they first imagined it was being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

What is most unique about the show is hardly ever commented on:  “Glee” is a mainstream, (not to mention FOX) television show that actually touches on significant ideas and issues!  bullying, teen pregnancy, disability, feminism and homophobia just off the top.

AND it has TWO out queer performers…one of whom who plays a queer student and the other plays a straight woman who perversely seems queer. Chris Colfer and Jane Lynch have, in one season, changed the face of television, picking up where “Ugly Betty” (sadly) left off.  Putting queer people in a cultural context that gives them resonance beyond the laugh track or their straight gal pals.

I am still waiting for the portrayal of a lesbian I can recognize (L Word was nice but not it for me.) on television.  The show that comes closest is “Exes and Ohs” on LOGO, funny and working class.

“Glee” in the meantime keeps cranking out the big musical numbers that remind me of the best days I had in high school; it lets Chris Colfer sing the high notes and Jane Lynch dress up like Madonna.  What could be bad!

Jane looked fabulous, by the way, at the National Center for Lesbian Rights annual gala on May 1!  Totally a lesbian I recognize.

…found in a side gallery at the Met, NYC

 It was like waking in an Olga Broumas poem

Colored girl surrounded by Greek marble

and repressed desires.  Or a surprise

tumbling into your two muses

at a cocktail party.

You’d hardly expect to recognize anyone

you know. Each guest is so big and famous

they look different close up

and out of context of books or pictures

 I was angry at the warrior holding her huge head

aloft as if the simple dismemberment was triumph.

How ‘boy’ not to notice that she’d turned him to stone.

 Eyes closed, Medusa looked at me

a subtle undulation of the snakes around that head,

the soft turn of her mouth pointed me toward the other.

The two here together—however captured—

Unbowed, unrepentant.  

There, Sappho supine

hardness made soft like the Buddha

by the craft of draping stone,

by the gaze—serene, searching.

Her feet outstretch from beneath her garments.  

One is the size of my arm.  Not the diminutive

or dainty thing biographers hawk.

And that bigness comforts me.

 One’s muse should be supersize to channel our fancies

and stay in our sight. 

Sappho lay back a short distance from Medusa

but always in relationship, the line of communication a laser

between them.

 Sappho like a warrior

firm and shapely

one hand on her breast

knowing Medusa

always watched.

Apparently (acording to the NY Times) a large amount of the money that went into stealing our right to marry went to media messaging companies in California!

Marketing/Communications, Inc. AKA Mar/Com Services
Schubert Flint Public Affairs
Criswell Associates

They crafted the messages that convinced voters we were less than equal so they’d vote for Prop 8. Then they spread their message back east to voters in New York and Maine. These companies are like a plague—destructive and mindless.

Who are these craven pigs! Somebody must know somebody who knows somebody who works there. Why haven’t we infiltrated them? Why have we sat quietly or spent most of our energy trashing our own organizations for their missteps?

Even if some don’t think having the right to marry is a priority (Sorry I don’t pick and choose which rights I’d prefer…I want them all) ignoring those who profit from destroying our rights seems kind of like closing our eyes while they pull out the hand cuffs…not the velvet kind. It may be 2010 for straight folks. For lesbians I guess it’ll always be 1950.

This Friday, October 30th, the work of Judy Grahn (and her new collection/selection from Aunt Lute Books) will be celebrated at an All Hallows’ Eve Extravaganza. If we went on just the titles of her poems and stories alone we’d want to show up! Mention “A Woman is Talking to Death” or “The Psychoanalysis of Edward the Dyke” and I’m there. But her substance is more than intriguing titles; her writing has helped to shape the world of feminist and lesbian poetry for the past two decades. Think of any contemporary female progressive poet and it would be hard to believe any of us would be writing what we do or thinking how we do w/out the foundation of Judy Grahn’s work!

I can’t pick a favorite—it’s too hard—but here is one reason to show up on Friday, 6:30, Dance Mission Theatre, 3316 24th Street, San Francisco, 94110. There will be music, dance, performance, prizes for costumes, poems! And Judy!

Info: marketing@auntlute.com

Two excerpts from The Common Woman poem series:

“the common woman is as common as the best of bread
and will rise
and will become strong–I swear to you
I swear it to you on my common
Woman’s
head”

or

“… a copperheaded waitress,
tired and sharp-worded, she hides
her bad brown tooth behind a wicked
smile, and flicks her ass
out of habit, to fend off the pass
that passes for affection.
She keeps her mind the way men
keep a knife …”

…everything would be just fine by now.

It’s the one year anniversary of Del’s passing. She was one of the foremost activists in the lesbian feminist movement and she finally married (twice) her partner, Phyllis Lyon, after 52 years, before conservatives stole our rights back. Her book written with Phyllis, “Lesbian Woman” saved the lives and shaped the politics of an entire generation of activists and writers.

I grew up in Boston so the Kennedy boys, as my (and most people’s) grandmother called them were intrinsic to our landscape. The remnants of the virulent discrimination the Irish suffered in Boston was laced through their tenacity and determination; but most people didn’t think about that. Most only related to the affluence of the Kennedy family. Living well is the best revenge—that and giving back. They did that.

They were never anywhere near perfect…and I hope we aren’t so infantile we need perfect leaders. Just as Obama isn’t perfect. The perfection is in the learning how to make yourself and the world better. Ted said at the 1980 Democratic convention something like: “one generation’s answers become the questions of the next generation.”

Having those two as my teachers, my role models is a great gift. There’s a tumbling collection of truths spiralling out from Del and Ted and many others who’ve searched for answers to human rights issues.

May their answers turn into questions that each succeeding generation wants to step up and try to answer. It’s in the learning that life is lived.

The Annual AfroSolo Arts Festival will do a public reading of my new play, “Waiting for Giovanni,” at the African American Arts and Culture Center, (August 8th, 762 Fulton Street, San Francisco, 3 PM). It’s free and the lovely intimate theatre seats a nice number of people…enough to create a real theatre experience but small enough to facilitate post-reading discussion.

The play, in develoment for about 4 years, is not biographical but rather more of a dream play designed to evoke an artist’s state of mind when he is confronted with a major threat to his personal integrity and his ability to make a living. When James Baldwin wrote the novel, “Giovanni’s Room,” many in publishing and in the Civil Rights Movement thought the short book about the tragic love affair between two men (not Black) in Paris would ruin his career. Yet he felt compelled to tell the story. About love, hope, class and conscience, the story is both poetic and heartbreaking.

I use this specific moment…as he struggles with how to respond to this threat…as a way to explore how any of us might respond to being pulled in so many directions. Our readers, publishers, editors, agents all have an idea of where we should be going with our work. How often does that correlate with what we, in our hearts, need to write about? How much compromise can we honestly make? How open can we be about who we are in our writing and hope to find a publisher?

As I wrote my most recent novel I had to think about whether the main character should even be a lesbian if I wanted the book to be bought by a mainstream publisher.

The dilemma goes beyind simply being a writer or artist. Our social conscience is perpetually challenged by every day needs and demands. As we get older how do we stay true to our beliefs? Our personal satisfaction is closely tied to our social conscience, or at least it used to be. Being a lesbian seems so easy sometimes, especially in the Bay Area. Being a woman—most of us take that for granted. But the culture isn’t hospitable to us. How can we make it more so for those who come after us?

James Baldwin was a brilliant thinker and writer whose fiction and essays are classic American literature. He was an amazing jumping off point to write about these ideas. Lorraine Hansberry faced a similar dilemma in her career as well. My hope is the play will send people back to Baldwin’s work and other classic queer Black writers and that it will inspire us to re-commit to social activism in our lives and our writing.