Sinister Wisdom 113: Radical Muses

By Sinister Wisdom

Sinister Wisdom 113: Radical Muses features an eclectic array of contemporary poetry, prose, and art by lesbians from around the world, including new work by:
Andrea Assaf
Tara Shea Burke
Cheryl Clarke
Marina Chirkova
Estela González
Barbara Haas
Nancy E. Lake
Vi Khi Nao
H. Ní Aódagaín
and much more!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sinister Wisdom
• Release date: May 28, 2020
• ISBN: 9781944981372

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 lesbian 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.

Book preview

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Publisher: Sinister Wisdom, Inc. 

Editor: Julie R. Enszer 

Associate Editor: Maricat Stratford 

Graphic Designer: Nieves Guerra 

Copy Editor: Carina Julig and Akilesh Sridharan 

Board of Directors: Roberta Arnold, Tara Shea Burke, Cheryl Clarke, Julie R. Enszer, Sara Gregory, J.P. Howard, Joan Nestle, Rose Norman, and Red Washburn 

Cover Art: Dormir contigo, 2018 - Artist: La Fuega Ilustra 

Media: Ilustracion digital (digital illustration) 

Size of artwork: 2531x2677 pix / 300 ppp 

Artist Statement: Es mucha nostalgia de un cariño y cuidado que me compartieron. It is nostalgia for the love and care they shared with me. 

Back Cover Art: Lady, 2018 - Artist: Nora Beck 

Media: Photograph taken on an iPhone 8

Size of artwork: 2812 pixels x 4032 pixels, 4.32 MB

SINISTER WISDOM, founded 1976

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–)

Copyright © 2019 Sinister Wisdom, Inc.

All rights revert to individual authors and artists upon publication.

Printed in the U. S. on recycled paper.

Subscribe online: www.SinisterWisdom.org

Join Sinister Wisdom on Facebook: 

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www.Instagram.com/sinister_wisdom

Sinister Wisdom is a US non-profit organization; donations to support the work and distribution of Sinister Wisdom are welcome and appreciated. Consider including Sinister Wisdom in your will.

Sinister Wisdom, 2333 McIntosh Road, Dover, FL 33527-5980 USA

Table of Contents

Notes for a Magazine

Tara Shea Burke

Dear Me As I Try To Remember Something About Love

Lauren Stroh

Broke Up Today

Women

Can’t Help It

Estela González

Alebrijes

Nancy E. Lake

The Goats at the Petting Zoo

Peanut in the Garden

Old Oaks

Sheep

All My Critters

Santa Rosa Creek

Artist Statement

Angelina Beach

Our City

Dany Mangrove

Out, In 6 Parts

Anna Patton

The Rootless

Jax NTP

Forgetting as Commodity

Andrea Assaff

Transcriptions

Caitlin Conroy

Chance of Showers

Marina Chirkova

The Sandpaper of Snow

Vi Khi Nao

11/This Open Moor

21/Sapphic Desire Through Cubism

Ruth Marner

The Bike Ride

Kae Bell

I Watch

Jen OConnor

Just Ripe

The Bed

LC Treeheart

Charlotte’s Gift

Pat McCutcheon

Longshot

Libido After 29 Years

Barbara Haas

Does Paris Really Exist

Caitlin Crowley

Window

Obstruction

Just Open

Familial Vessel III

Familial Vessel I

Bumble Lot

Artist Statement

Jane Skye

Tele-vision

My heart is chewing gum

Cheryl Clarke

Wreckless Domesticity

#Botham Jean from St. Lucia

H. Ní Aódagaín

Southern Oregon Women Writers' Group, Gourmet Eating Society and Chorus

Yael Dekel

Where Will You Be (Pat Parker in Hebrew)

Harriet Ellenberger

Some Reflections on Lesbian Culture, Feminist Thought, Jazz, and Love

    Snapshot Celebration of Lesbian Love: Cheryl Clarke & Barbara Balliet

Book Reviews

Allegra Perhaes

Obituary

Contributors

Adds

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Back Issues

Back Cover

Notes for a Magazine

This summer 2019 issue marks forty-three years of Sinister Wisdom publishing a journal for lesbians, lesbian imagination, and lesbian literary and art communities. What a legacy the journal provides our communities! I’m proud to be stewarding the journal through this period of her middle age.

Two pieces for this issue of Sinister Wisdom, Sinister Wisdom 113: Radical Muses, arrived at the last moment, and they fortuitously helped this issue become the Radical Muses that I envisioned for it—and honestly for all issues of Sinister Wisdom that I edit and publish.

At some point in late 2018 or early 2019, Yael Dekel called me from Israel. She and a group of women in Israel had translated poems of Pat Parker and they were looking to secure the permissions for a printed edition of the book. We handled the business details of the conversation and then I asked Yael if she might write something for Sinister Wisdom about reading and translating Parker into Hebrew. She did and you’ll find her essay—and her tribute to her co-translator who is now of blessed memory—at the end of this issue.

Pat Parker is having a renaissance in the moment. The book Sister Love, collecting the letters between Parker and Audre Lorde continues to circulate in interesting circles of readers and writers and appreciators of these two women’s work. Recently, Sister Love made an appearance on the New York Public Library podcast, The Librarian Is In, where the hosts discussed the letters in depth.

Then, Solange sampled part of Parker reading a poem for her new album When I Get Home, which explore Solange’s hometown of Houston, Texas, where she and Parker grew up in the same ward. Though Parker and Solange are a generation or two apart, the city of Houston shaped both of them in powerful ways.

These local engagements with Parker complement the international engagements and remind us what a powerful voice Parker provided not only to lesbian-feminists but also to the world.

The other piece that came across my desk late for this issue is an essay, now nearly a decade old by one of the founders of Sinister Wisdom. Harriet Ellenberger (Desmoines) first wrote the essay, Some Reflections on Lesbian Culture, Feminist Thought, Jazz, and Love on Valentine’s Day in 2002. It circulated modestly at the time, but seems particularly powerful and relevant today; I have reprinted it at the end of this issue of Sinister Wisdom and hope that you find it meaningful and relevant.

As always, the issue Sinister Wisdom 113: Radical Muses is chock full of great new writing by lesbian and we have a lovely selection of lesbian art. Though I will confess the best collection of lesbian art that I have seen in a long time is in the 2020 Sinister Wisdom calendar. You will want to advance order your copy today at www.sinisterwisdom.org/calendar!

As a special summer surprise, I cooked up a blank book this spring with an intrepid group of interns and volunteers for lesbians to do their own creative writing, list making, and memory collection. The Sinister Wisdom blank book, titled Notes for a Revolution, is 144 blank pages with inspiring quotations for women and plenty of space for writing. The blank book is available to all for just $14 plus postage of $2.75 at www.sinisterwisdom.org/revolution. I hope that you will consider giving these beautiful, coil-bound notebooks as gifts throughout the next year!

For forty-three years, Sinister Wisdom has been creating, publishing, and promoting lesbian literature, art, and creativity. We hope to do it for another forty-three years. Imagine what lesbian goodness Sinister Wisdom might create next. Help make these visions a reality. Thank you for joining this journey.

In sisterhood,

Julie R. Enszer, PhD

July 2019

Dear Me As I Try To Remember Something About Love

Tara Shea Burke

Remember when you said to love is still the most radical act.

Remember when you were heartbroken by love and laughed at that bullshit line.

Remember when you said you’d never get on Tinder, cut your hair, paint anything gray again.

Remember when you said you’d never stay with a lover who didn’t make love, then you did.

Remember in Middle School when you watched the Titanic and the Leo version of Romeo and Juliet.

Remember how you played the soundtracks over and over and looked out the window.

Remember when you wrote a poem about a kid you wished would love you like that.

Remember how you used this form, then: remember the way you talked to me, remember the way you set me free, remember how we skated to the song, remember how you wished it was too long...

Remember how Mr. Doerwaldt read it aloud in class and it was that day in 8th grade you became a poet and also the one who drooled her feelings all over the halls, an animal unable to hide.

Remember when mom made fun of you for loving Titanic and Romeo and Juliet and how you fell in love with Leo AND Kate AND Claire.

Remember Celine Dion, too, how you loved her husband ballads.

Remember how much you love love all over the place. The power of love. You jump I jump jack. Married at, like, twelve and the perfect loss of virginity under white sheets and enchanted parties with coy eyes turning corners and don’t forget how much you still stand in elevators waiting to be pinned.

Remember dead on top of one another, love for the sake of love despite family and empire, poison in the mouth and poison in the body and love you would die for and the professor who called out the historical context and gender problems in this, how hormones were at play and you know you would have married anyone at, like, twelve if they would have loved you like that.

Remember my heart will go on and the room on that damn door and the way the orchestra played as the ship sank and how much you wanted to