by Pat Parker
Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York
University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts
University of Delaware, Newark, Delaware
St. George Methodist Church, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey
Ontario Theatre, Washington, DC
Medusa’s Revenge, New York, New York
1977
Chico State University, Chico, California
University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon
First Annual San Francisco Women’s Poetry Festival, San Francisco, California
Washington State NOW Conference, Seattle, Washington
1976
International Tribunal on Crimes Against Women, Brussels, Belgium
Mills College, Oakland, California
University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California
Glide Memorial Church, San Francisco, California
1975
Fahrenheit 451 Bookstore, Laguna Beach, California
Las Hermanas, San Diego California
University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico
Focus II Gallery, New York, New York
Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
Club Madone, Washington, DC
First Unitarian Church, Cincinnati, Ohio
The Saints, Boston, Massachusetts
Houston Women’s Center, Houston, Texas
1974
Evergreen State College, Olympia, Washington
University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California
NOW, Stockton, California
California Institute for Women, Ontario, California
Intersection, San Francisco, California
Mills College, Oakland, California
Santa Rosa Junior College, Santa Rosa, California
1973
Foothill College, Oakland, California
KQED-TV, San Francisco, California
Prose
“The Demonstrator,” Negro Digest (November 1963): 28-29.
“Autobiography: Chapter One,” True to Life Adventure Stories, Volume Two, edited by Judy Grahn (Trumansburg, New York: Crossing Press, 1981).
“Shoes,” True to Life Adventure Stories, Volume One, edited by Judy Grahn (Trumansburg, New York: Crossing Press, 1983): 176-83. [Also published in I Never Told Anyone edited by Ellen Bass and Louise Thornton (New York: Harper and Row, 1985)].
“Revolution: It’s Not Neat or Pretty or Quick,” This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, edited by Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa (New York: Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, 1983): 238-42.
“Poetry at Women’s Music Festivals: Oil and Water,” Hot Wire 2, number 4 (November 1986): 52, 53, 63.
“Gay Parenting, Or, Look Out, Anita,” Politics of the Heart: A Lesbian Parenting Anthology, edited by Sandra Pollack and Jeanne Vaughn (Ithaca, New York: Firebrand, 1987): 94-99.
“On Stage and Off: 1987 March on Washington,” Hot Wire 5, number 1 (January 1989): 16, 17, 58.
Recorded Work
“Any Woman’s Blues,” anthology. Unitarian Service Committee, 1975.
“Lesbian Concentrate,” anthology. Olivia Records. 1977.
“Where Would I Be Without You: The Poetry of Pat Parker and Judy Grahn.” Olivia Records. 1976.
Interviews
Jane, Jessie. “Lord! What Kind of Child Is This.” Gay Community News (May 31, 1975): 10.
Rushin, Kate. “Pat Parker: Creating Room to Speak and Grow.” Sojourner 11 (October 1985): 28-29.
Woodwoman, Libby. “Pat Parker Talks About Her Life and Her Work.” Margins (August 1975): 60-61.
Critical Writing about Parker
Ali, Kazim. “The Killer Will Remain Free: On Pat Parker and the Poetics of Madness.” Journal of Lesbian Studies 19, no. 3 (Fall 2015): 379-383.
Annas, Pamela. “A Poetry of Survival: Unmaking and Renaming in the Poetry of Audre Lorde, Pat Parker, Sylvia Plath, and Adrienne Rich.” Colby Library Quarterly 18 (March 1982): 9-25.
Beemyn, Brett. “Bibliography of Works by and about Pat Parker (1944-1989),” SAGE VI, no. 1 (Summer 1989): 81.
Callaghan, Dympna. “Pat Parker: Feminism in Postmodernity” in Contemporary Poetry Meets Modern Theory, ed. Antony Easthope and John O. Thompson (University of Toronto Press, 1991).
Clarke, Cheryl. Review of Movement in Black, (Conditions: Six, 1980): 217-225.
Clarke, Cheryl and Julie R. Enszer. “Introduction: Where Would I Be Without You.” Journal of Lesbian Studies 19, no. 3 (Summer 2015): 275-289.
Clay, Andreana. “Yearnings and Other “Acts of Perversion”: Or Where Would I Be Without Lesbian Drumming?” Journal of Lesbian Studies 19, no. 3 (Summer 2015): 384-399.
Folayan, Ayofemi, and Stephania Byrd. “Pat Parker” in Contemporary Lesbian Writers of the United States: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook, ed. Sandra Pollack and Denise D. Knight (Greenwood, 1993).
Green, Jr., David B. “‘Anything That Gets Me in My Heart’: Pat Parker’s Poetry of Justice.” Journal of Lesbian Studies 19, no. 3 (Summer 2015): 317-335.
Garber, Linda. Identity Poetics: Race, Class, and the Lesbian Feminist Roots of Queer Theory (Columbia University Press, 2001).
Kuras, Pat. “Pat Parker: Poet as Preacher” (Gay Community News, 1985).
Moraga, Cherríe. A Xicana Codex of Changing Consciousness: Writings 2000-2010. (Duke University Press, 2011).
Smith, Barbara. “Naming the Unnameable: The Poetry of Pat Parker.” Conditions: Three (Spring 1976): 99-103.
Van Ausdall, Mimi Iimuro. “‘The Day All of the Different Parts of Me Can Come Along’: Intersectionality and U.S. Third World Feminism in the Poetry of Pat Parker and Willyce Kim. Journal of Lesbian Studies 19, no. 3 (Summer 2015): 336-356.
Warner, Sara. Acts of Gaiety: LGBT Performance and the Politics of Pleasure (University of Michigan Press, 2012).
Washburn, Amy. “Unpacking Pat Parker: Intersections and Revolutions in “Movement in Black”.” Journal of Lesbian Studies 19, no. 3 (Summer 2015): 305-316.
Appendix: Tables of Contents
Child of Myself (San Lorenzo, CA: Shameless Hussy Press, 1971)
Dedication:
This book is dedicated
to my father, who compromised
his dreams that I might realize mine.
Table of Contents
[from cavities of bone]
Goat Child
[With the sun]*
Ice Cream Blues**
Fuller Brush Day
[Sometimes my husband]
For Donna
Assassination**
[Brother]
[Move in darkness]
[To see a may cry]
[You can’t be sure of anything these days]
Exodus
For Michael on his third birthday
A Family Tree
Dialogue
A Moment Left Behind
[Let me come to you naked]
* [With the sun] is later titled by Parker “Desire.”
** “Ice Cream Blues” and “Assassination” were not included in the second edition of Child of Myself from the Women’s Press Collective.
Child of Myself (Oakland, CA: Women’s Press Collective, 1972, 1974)
Table of Contents
[from cavities of bone]
[Brother]
[Sometimes my husband]
Fuller Brush Day
Fuller Brush 2
[To see a may cry]
[You can’t be sure of anything these days]
Exodus
[In English Lit.,]
[My heart is fresh cement,]
For Michael on his third birthday
For Donna
Dialogue
A Family Tree
Goat Child
A Moment Left Behind
[Move in darkness]
[love]
Autumn Morning
[With the sun]*
/>
From Deep Within
[Let me come to you naked]
* [With the sun] is later titled by Parker “Desire.”
Pit Stop (Oakland, CA: Women’s Press Collective, 1973, 1975)
Table of Contents
[My lover is a woman]
[My hands are big]
COP-OUT
To an Unlabelled*
[I have a solitary lover]
For Willyce
I Kumquat You
A Small Contradiction
[i wish that i could hate you]
Bitch!
Best Friends
Pit Stop
[When i drink]
[i wonder]
[Tour America!]
[I’m so tired]
The What Liberation Front?
Snatches of a Day
Sunday
Pied Piper
Questions
Have you ever tried to hide?
[i have a dream]
* This poem is not included in later iterations of Movement in Black; it is restored in this edition.
Womanslaughter (Oakland, CA: Diana Press, Inc., 1978)
Table of Contents
GROUP
gente
For the white person who wants to know
how to be my friend.
To my Vegetarian Friend
“Don’t let the fascist speak.”
Where do you go to become non-citizen?
For The Straight Folks Who Don’t Mind Gays
But Wish They Weren’t So BLATANT
Love Poem #7
Love Poem #8
Metamorphosis
Para Maria Sandra
Non-monogamy Is a Pain in the Butt
My Lady Ain’t No Lady
there is a woman in this town
“Her children arise up, and call her blessed. . . .”
The Law
WOMANSLAUGHTER
All of the poems of Womanslaughter are included in Movement in Black, some poems have different titles; some poems are edited.
A Midsummer Night’s Press
A Midsummer Night’s Press was founded by Lawrence Schimel in New Haven, CT in 1991. Using a letterpress, it published broadsides of poems by Nancy Willard, Joe Haldeman, and Jane Yolen, among others, in signed, limited editions of 126 copies, numbered 1-100 and lettered A-Z. In 1993, the publisher moved to New York and the press went on hiatus until 2007, when it began publishing perfect-bound, commercially-printed books, under the imprints:
Fabula Rasa
Fabula Rasa: devoted to works inspired by mythology, folklore, and fairy tales. Titles from this imprint include Fairy Tales for Writers by Lawrence Schimel, Fortune’s Lover: A Book of Tarot Poems by Rachel Pollack, Fairy Tales in Electri-city by Francesca Lia Block, The Last Selchie Child by Jane Yolen, What If What’s Imagined Were All True by Roz Kaveney, and Lilith’s Demons by Julie R. Enszer.
Body Language
Body Language: devoted to texts exploring questions of gender and sexual identity. Titles from this imprint include This is What Happened in Our Other Life by Achy Obejas, Banalities by Brane Mozetic (translated from the Slovene by Elizabeta Zargi with Timothy Liu), Handmade Love by Julie R. Enszer, Mute by Raymond Luczak; Milk and Honey: A Celebration of Jewish Lesbian Poetry edited by Julie R. Enszer, Dialectic of the Flesh by Roz Kaveney, Fortunate Light by David Bergman, Deleted Names by Lawrence Schimel, This Life Now by Michael Broder, and When I Was Straight by Julie Marie Wade.
Periscope
Periscope: devoted to works of poetry in translation by women writers. The first titles are: One is None by Estonian poet Kätlin Kaldmaa (translated by Miriam McIlfatrick), Anything Could Happen by Slovenian poet Jana Putrle (translated by Barbara Jursa), and Dissection by Spanish poet Care Santos (translated by Lawrence Schimel).
Sinister Wisdom
Sinister Wisdom is a multicultural lesbian literary & art journal that publishes four issues each year. Publishing since 1976, Sinister Wisdom works to create a multicultural, multi-class lesbian space. Sinister Wisdom seeks to open, consider and advance the exploration of community issues. Sinister Wisdom recognizes the power of language to reflect our diverse experiences and to enhance our ability to develop critical judgment, as lesbians evaluating our community and our world.
Editor and Publisher: Julie R. Enszer, PhD.
Board of Directors: Tara Shea Burke, Cheryl Clarke, Kathleen DeBold, Julie R. Enszer, Sue Lenaerts, Joan Nestle, Rose Norman, Judith K. Witherow.
Statements made and opinions expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, board members, or editor(s) of Sinister Wisdom.
Former editors and publishers:
Harriet Ellenberger (aka Desmoines)
and Catherine Nicholson (1976-1981)
Michelle Cliff and Adrienne Rich (1981-1983)
Michaele Uccella (1983-1984)
Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz (1983-1987)
Elana Dykewomon (1987-1994)
Caryatis Cardea (1991-1994)
Akiba Onada-Sikwoia (1995-1997)
Margo Mercedes Rivera-Weiss (1997-2000)
Fran Day (2004-2010)
Julie R. Enszer & Merry Gangemi (2010-2013)
Julie R. Enszer (2013- )
Subscribe online: www.SinisterWisdom.org
Join Sinister Wisdom on Facebook: www.Facebook.com/SinisterWisdom
Sinister Wisdom is a U.S. non-profit organization; donations to support the work and distribution of Sinister Wisdom are welcome and appreciated.
Consider including Sinister Wisdom in your will.
Sapphic Classics
The Sapphic Classics series, copublished by Sinister Wisdom and A Midsummer Night’s Press, reprints iconic works of lesbian poetry in new editions with original introductions and afterwords to help bring these important works to new generations of readers.
The previous titles in this annual series are:
Crime Against Nature by Minnie Bruce Pratt
Living as a Lesbian by Cheryl Clarke
What Can I Ask: New and Selected Poems by Elana Dykewomon
