by Pat Parker
Hyphenated words offer various editorial choices. Generally, I have preserved Parker’s hyphenation or lack of hyphenation in the poems. As I have edited this volume, I have wondered how hyphenation of words and word phrases relates to the performative aspects of many of these poems.
Parker’s capitalization is capricious throughout Movement in Black. She uses I and i variably and to my reading inconsistently; similarly ‘and’ and ‘&.’ There are numerous other examples of Parker’s engagement with capitalization. In some instances, capitalization or lack of capitalization seems a clear statement on power and authority within the text, for instance capitalizing “Black.” In other instances, the meanings are less clear. The text here reflects how the poems were presented in the 1978/83/90 editions; the 1999 edition standardizes some of these choices. Thinking about the differences in presentation between the texts is a productive activity.
In reproducing Parker’s poems for this edition, I have tried to hew closely to previously published works and to manuscript and typewritten copy of the poems. As with dashes and hyphens, however, the production of print material has changed substantially since Parker’s work. As an early member of the Women’s Press Collective, Parker was attuned keenly to the physical aspects of book-making, including typography and typesetting. Many of her indentations in the poems are small—a few spaces. I wonder if she might have rethought the physical presentation of her poetry on the page as personal computers and desktop publishing evolved. She did not live to see this rapid evolution. The physical presentation on the page is as faithful as possible to its production from the 1970s, but I often wonder if she would want more bold spaces in her work given the availability of technology today.
Notes on the Poems
This edition of Parker’s master work includes Audre Lorde’s introduction to the 1978 and 1984 editions of Movement in Black. While Parker’s respect for Lorde was great and their friendship significant to both women, Parker did not like the phrase in Lorde’s introduction that suggested that her poems had lines that faltered. Nevertheless, this introduction to Parker’s work is significant because of Lorde’s reputation and many commendations of Parker’s work and their enduring, nearly twenty year friendship.
The 1999 edition of Movement in Black includes an “Introduction” by Cheryl Clarke and celebrations, remembrances, and tributes by Donna Allegra, Angela Y. Davis, Toi Derricotte, Jewelle Gomez, Audre Lorde, Michelle Parkerson, Ann Allen Shockley, Barbara Smith, Pamela Sneed, and Evelyn C. White. These pieces are not reproduced in this edition; all are wonderful and worth reading.
In “Goat Child,” there are not dates in the second part of the poem in the 1978/83/90 editions; they are inserted {1956-1962} in the 1999 edition, providing consistency among the sections. For this edition, I did not insert them.
In [from cavities of bone], the 1978/83/90 editions have the Genesis quotation as 1:23; it is actually 2:23. It is corrected in this edition.
“Brother” was used in the television show A Different World on April 2, 1992. Nancy Bereano of Firebrand Books negotiated a cash payment for the use of the poem and a t-shirt, cast photo, and copy of the script for Anastasia, Parker’s daughter with Marty Dunham. Anastasia was ten years old when the episode aired.
In “Dialogue,” Parker inserts an asterisk at the line “Child, dear child, I must,” and attributes it to Shirley Jones, her sister. I have removed the asterisk attribution from this edition after reader reports that it was distracting. An early manuscript copy of this poem presents the third line in the sixth stanza as “First, you stop smoking pot.”
In “Pied Piper,” the third line from the end in the 1978/83/90 edition reads: “Yes, does it mean?” The 1999 edition inserts the word “what” which clarifies meaning for readers. I have used this correction in this edition.
The “Mau Mau” reference at the end of this poem refers to the uprising in Kenya by Kikuyu leaders against British rule.
In the poem [I’m so tired], in the penultimate line, in the 1978/83/90 edition, the singular verb is used. In the 1999 edition, the lines are “the tactics / of this revolution / are to / talk the enemy to death.” The grammatical change is correct, yet there is a pleasure to the vernacular in the earlier formation, so I let it remain for this edition.
In [Boots are being polished], M.C.C. refers to the Metropolitan Community Church, an evangelical Christian church that ministers to LGBT people. MCC began in Los Angeles and has grown since its founding to now be the largest LGBT Christian denomination in the United States.
“The What Liberation Front?” playfully suggests Parker’s affection for her canine companions. See the photograph of Parker and one of her dogs on page 299.
In the poem [I have a dream], Martin refers to Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm refers to Malcolm X, Huey refers to Huey P. Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, George refers to George Jackson, a prison activist killed by guards at the San Quentin Prison, and Angela refers to Angela Y. Davis, an African-American activist, prisoner, author, lesbian, and feminist.
In “Movement in Black,” in the third stanza of the second part, all editions read “shot a few man too.” I believe Parker meant men and have corrected that in this edition.
This note is included about “Movement in Black”: This poem was first performed at Oakland Auditorium on December 2nd and 3rd 1977 by Linda Tillery, Vicki Randle, Alberta Jackson, Mary Watkins and Pat Parker.
The original artwork by Irmagean in the 1978/83/90 edition is powerful and adds to the poem. It is worth seeking out an earlier edition to see the art-word combination as part of Parker’s vision of this poem.
Marie Cooks in the poem “Cop-out” is Parker’s mother.
Willyce in the poem “For Willyce” is the Asian-American poet Willyce Kim, author of three books of poetry, Curtains of Light (1970), Eating Artichokes (1972), and Under the Rolling Sky (1976).
In the poem [Let me come to you naked], the refrain line in the quatrains originally appears as “and lay beside you.” This is corrected, grammatically, in the 1999 edition, yet I delight in the assonance of lay and I suspect Parker might have. Both the assonance and the punning of lay bring joy in spite of its grammar. I think readers will enjoy the pleasure and overlook the error (if it is an error).
Gente is a Spanish word that means people. Parker’s poem “gente” refers to gathering with other women of color. Gente was also a San Francisco Bay Area organization of women of color that Parker belonged to and was active with during her life.
“Womanslaughter” is about the murder of Parker’s sister Shirley Jones.
New Work
Nancy Bereano assembled the poems in the section of Movement in Black titled “New Work” for the 1999 edition. In doing the research for this edition of Parker’s work, I did not review the material that Bereano worked with to assemble the 1999 edition. This section is a fair transcription of the published poems. I hope that another scholar will review those materials and think and write bout the editorial interventions in these poems, further engaging Parker’s work and the editorial relationships among lesbian-feminist authors and publishers.
Parker’s poem “Progeny” references multiple activists of the civil rights movement, beginning with Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King, Jr, and Malcolm X, and their daughters (Parker later references Ms. Shabazz, Malcolm X’s daughter, directly). In the fifth stanza, Parker lists four African-Americans who were killed by police. The New York City police shot and killed Eleanor Bumpurs in her Bronx apartment in 1984; Clifford Glover was shot and killed by a New York police officer in 1973; a Detroit policewoman killed Allene Richardson outside of her apartment building; a New York City police officer killed Randy Evans in 1976. Parker reference the mothers of Emmett Till, Bobby Hutton, and Jonathan Jackson, two of who were killed in armed struggles on behalf of Black freedom struggles. With these multiple references, Parker constructs a genealogy of thirty years from the death of Till in 1955 through the death of Eleanor Bu
mpurs.
The epigraph to “For Audre” is from Audre Lorde’s poem, “The Black Unicorn,” which appeared in her 1978 collection of the same title. The later epigraph from “A Woman Speaks” is also from Lorde’s The Black Unicorn (New York: W.W. Norton, 1978). Spinsters Ink published The Cancer Journals by Audre Lorde in 1980. Persephone Press published Zami: A New Spelling of My Name in 1982.
“Funny” is a brief memoir piece that appeared at the end of the posthumous edition of Movement in Black. One of the hallmarks of literary activism among lesbian-feminists is the blurring of genres. Poetry, prose, memoir, novels, fiction, and non-fiction all blended in vital and productive ways in the worlds of writers like Parker. Throughout the 1980s, Parker wrote prose pieces—short stories, a novel, and other pieces of prose, including numerous speeches. “Funny” is preserved with Movement in Black in this edition of Parker’s work. Additional prose is included in a separate section. Parker worked on “Funny” in her journal with the title “The Closet Chronicles” and the piece opens with the date 1955.
The final line of “Funny,” ‘we would not have to walk alone,’ seems to echo Marijane Meeker (Ann Aldrich’s) iconic nonfiction book about lesbianism in the 1950s, We Walk Alone (1955).
Jonestown & other madness
In the 1970s, Parker was involved in the production of her work as a member of the Women’s Press Collective and, later, with Diana Press. When Firebrand Books published Jonestown & other madness, Parker wanted an African American woman to design the cover. Nancy Bereano wrote to Pat Parker on November 5, 1984, “I have located a Black woman designer to do the cover for JONESTOWN AND OTHER MADNESS. It turns out that she (Cassandra Maxwell-Simmons) has a sister in San Francisco who was going to be sent to Jonestown to cover the massacre by the television station she works for, but her passport was out of date. In any case, she is reading the manuscript and coming up with ideas.” (Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library, Firebrand Books records, 1984-2000 Box 8, Folder “Jonestown & other madness General 84-85,” Letter to Pat Parker from Nancy Bereano).
Jonestown foreword: Jonestown was the name of a settlement in Guyana led by Jim Jones. On November 18, 1978, over 900 people committed suicide in a tragedy that was widely reported throughout the United States.
Blackberri is a singer, composer, poet, photographer, and political activist based in Oakland, CA.
On Thanksgiving Day in 1980, Priscilla Ford used her car to kill six people and injure twenty-three others in downtown Las Vegas. The newspaper article image on page 207 is from the papers of Pat Parker at the Schlesinger library.
Prose
“The Demonstrator” appeared in a series in Negro Digest titled, “All for the Cause” in the November 1963 issue. Parker published under the name P. A. Bullins. Bullins was her married name at the time. She published three other essays under the name P. A. Bullins in Black Dialogue, Perspectives and Citadel (the literary magazine of Los Angeles Community College).
In “The Demonstrator,” CORE refers to the Congress of Racial Equality. Founded in 1942, CORE played a pivotal role in the civil rights struggles of the 1950s and 1960s.
“Autobiography Chapter One” appeared in True to Life Adventure Stories, volume two. Parker was working on an autobiography project during the 1980s, though she never completed the project.
“Shoes” appeared in True to Life Adventure Stories, edited by Judy Grahn (Oakland, CA: Diana Press, 1978): 176-182. It was reprinted in I Never Told Anyone with the following epigraph:
Pat Parker, from “I Never Told Anyone”
“At nine years old, being a black child in the South in the 1950s, it was impossible for my story to have any other ending, and that still makes me angry.”
Pat Parker was born on January 20, 1944, in Houston, Texas, where her story “Shoes”, takes place. About the story, she writes: “I felt the need to get it out of my system in order to move on to other things. I had never told the story to anyone. I carried a great deal of anger as a result of the incident: anger toward my parents for their insistence that I respect any adult as an authority figure; anger toward the store owner for this perversion and use of me; and anger at the economic structure of this political system.”
She continues: “I still have thoughts from time to time of returning to Houston and seeing if that store is still there. I often wonder about the store owner and his family. And I wonder how many other little girls, long after I left the school, were invited to see the shoes.
“Shoes” was originally published in True to Life Adventure Stories, edited by Judy Grahn and published by Diana Press. Four books of poetry by Pat Parker have also been published, and she has appeared on three record albums and in numerous anthologies. Currently she is at work on her fifth book of poetry as well as a novel and a play. She is also a director of the Oakland Feminist Health Center in Oakland, California.
In the text of “Shoes,” Parker refers to Buster Brown and Ty in the True to Life Adventure Stories edition; in I Never Told Anyone, the editors reformat this section and refer to the dog as Tyge. I believe that the spelling of Buster Brown’s dog’s name is Tige. I have let Parker’s spelling stand and used the original version from True to Life Adventure Stories.
Judy Grahn accepted the short story, “Mama and the Hogs,” for a third volume of True to Life Adventure Stories. This volume was never published. Judy Grahn generously provided me with her copyedited copy of the story for inclusion in this edition.
“Revolution: It’s Not Neat or Pretty or Quick” appeared in This Bridge Called My Back, edited by Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa (Watertown, MA: Persephone Press, 1981 and New York: Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, 1983): 238-42. Parker refers on page 254 to the Iranian Revolution in 1979 that replaced the Shah with Khomeini, the leader of the revolution. Parker also mentions Iran in the play “Pinocle” on page 304 and in the poem “[Every once in a while]” on page 403. Parker references the fifty-two American diplomats and citizens who were held hostage in Iran from November 1979 through January 1981. The Trilateral Commission was founded in 1973 “to foster closer cooperation among North America, Western Europe, and Japan. At the end of “Revolution,” Parker references Judy Grahn’s “She Who” poems. Diana Press first published She Who: A Graphic Book of Poems in 1977; many of the poems from the collection are included in Grahn’s new and selected poems, love belongs to those who do the feeling (Red Hen Press, 2008).
“Poetry at Women’s Music Festivals: Oil and Water,” Hot Wire (November 1986): 52-53; 63. Toni Armstrong, Michele Gautreaux, Ann Morris, and Yvonne Zipter founded Hot Wire: A Journal of Women’s Music and Culture and published the first issue in November 1984. Toni Armstrong acted as the publisher and managing editor through its ten year publication, ending in September 1994. Parker’s article, “Poetry at Women’s Music Festivals: Oil and Water” was a part of the RE:INKING series. Hot Wire described the series this way, “Re:Inking articles deal with women’s writing as a cultural phenomenon, including individual writers, women’s publishing ventures and the growing Women-In-Print movement.”
The National Women’s Music Festival, a four-day musical and cultural gathering, began in 1975. Parker performed at the Festival and was scheduled to perform at the Festival in June 1989, but she was too sick to travel to Bloomington, Indiana, where it was held that year. On page 262, the original article contains this line: “bar women would not give up their junkboxes.” Perhaps Parker meant juke boxes or perhaps it was a neologism by Parker commenting on the music.
Olivia Records was a woman-owned music company that produced records and concerts from 1973 until 1988; in 1988 it became a lesbian travel company. Parker and Grahn’s album, Where Would I Be Without You, was the only spoken word album produced by Olivia Records. For more information about the album see Clarke and Enszer, “Introduction.” For more information about Olivia Records, see Bonnie Morris, “Olivia Records: The Production of a Movement,” Journal of Lesbian Studi
es 19, no. 3 (Summer 2015): 290-304.
For more information about the Varied Voices of Black Women tour, see Michelle Moravec’s manuscript in progress here: http://politicsofwomensculture.michellemoravec.com/varied-voices-of-black-women-an-evening-of-words-and-music-writinginpublic-spring-2016/.
“Gay Parenting, Or, Look out, Anita,” appeared in Politics of the Heart: A Lesbian Parenting Anthology, edited by Sandra Pollack and Jeanne Vaughn (Ithaca, NY: Firebrand, 1987), 94-99.
Anita in the title is a reference to Anita Bryant, the spokeswoman for Florida oranges who lead an anti-gay and lesbian campaign in the late 1970s.
“The 1987 March on Washington: The Morning Rally” describes Parker’s experiences at the second national march for gay and lesbian rights on October 11, 1987 in Washington, DC. Hot Wire published this piece in January 1989. In the text box on page 272, Kathy Tsui is, I believe, an error in the original article. Kitty Tsui was a speaker at the morning rally along with Parker. Morris Kight was a gay rights pioneer and peace activist based in Los Angeles, California. Buffy Dunker was a Boston-based lesbian activist who was profiled in Ginny Vida’s Our Right to Love: A Lesbian Resource Book. ARC is an acronym for AIDS-related complex, a term commonly used in the late 1980s to describe AIDS-related illnesses.
