Sinister Wisdom 73
Summer 2008

$6

Sinister Wisdom

73

The Art Issue

Publisher: Sinister Wisdom, Inc.
Editor: Fran Day

Sinister Wisdom 73
Summer 2008

Layout and Design: Kim P. Fusch
Board of Directors: Shaba Barnes, Fran Day, Susan Levinkind, Joan Nestle, Rose
Provenzano, Judith K. Witherow.
Office Manager: Susan Levinkind
Proofreader: Fran Day
Web Design: Sue Lenaerts
Special thanks to: Shaba Barnes. Glorya Cabrera, Sandy Calvo, Alix Dobkin,Nann Dunne, Roxanna N. Fiamma, Marisa Martinez, Rose Provenzano, Margaret
Purcell, Jan Shade, Jean Weisinger, rainbow williams, and Susan Wiseheart.
Mailing Crew for #72: Linda Bacci, Fran Day, Roxanna Fiamma, Moire Martin,
Senecarol Rising, Jan Shade, Stacee Shade, and Sandy Tate.
Front Cover Art: Winged Pages by Jenna Weston.
Back Cover Art: Old Oaks by Nancy E. Lake.
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)
Sinister Wisdom is a multicultural, multi-class, female-born lesbian space. We
seek to open, consider and advance the exploration of community issues. We
recognize the power of language to reflect our diverse experiences and to enhance
our ability to develop critical judgment, as lesbians evaluating our communityand our world. Statements made and opinions expressed in this publication do
not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, board members, or editor(s) ofSinister Wisdom.
Copyright © 2008 Sinister Wisdom, Inc.
All rights revert to individual authors and artists.
ISSN: 0196-1853. Printed in the U. S. on recycled paper.

Sinister Wisdom, Inc. PO Box 3252, Berkeley, CA 94703, USA
www.sinisterwisdom.org

Submission Guidelines
Submissions: See page 128 for themes. Check our website at www.sinisterwisdom.
org for updates on upcoming issues. Please read the guidelines below before
sending material. Material should be sent to the editor or guest editor of the issue.
Everything else should be sent to Sinister Wisdom, POB 3252, Berkeley, CA
94703.
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Material may be in any style or form, or combination of forms. Maximum: fivepoems, two short stories or essays, or one longer piece of up to 2500 words. We
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We publish only Lesbians’ work. We are particularly interested in work that reflects
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Please contact us if you have a new theme you would like to see explored. We arelooking for guest editors for future issues.
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Sinister Wisdom in your area.

summer 2008

A Journal by and for LesbiansContents
Appreciations.................................................................................................... 2Fran Day............................. Notes for a Magazine............................................ 3
ART
Sierra Lonepine Briano...................................................................................... 4
Dean Brittingham............................................................................................. 5
Lynn Brown ..................................................................................................... 9
Cathy Cade............................................................................................... 13, 97
Lenore Chinn.................................................................................................. 14
Karen Cooper ................................................................................................ 17
Tee A. Corinne................................................................................................ 18
Jan Couvillon.................................................................................................. 21
Max Dashu..................................................................................................... 22
Fran Day......................................................................................................... 25
Francine.......................................................................................................... 26
Tina Friemuth................................................................................................. 31
Kim Fusch....................................................................................................... 35
Diane Germain............................................................................................... 36
Marjorie Greenhut.......................................................................................... 38
Morgan Gwenwald.......................................................................................... 42
Virginia Harris................................................................................................ 46
Harvest................................................................................................... 48, 120
jody jewdyke................................................................................................... 49
Verlena Johnson.............................................................................................. 53
Nancy E. Lake................................................................................................. 57
Sue Lenaerts.................................................................................................... 61
Jane Levin....................................................................................................... 64
anna-marie lopez............................................................................................. 65
Virginia May................................................................................................... 68
Stacey McCaig................................................................................................ 70
Nancy Nau...................................................................................................... 72
OLOC............................................................................................................ 74
PGar............................................................................................................... 75
Sudie Rakusin................................................................................................. 76
Annie Soper.................................................................................................... 81
Linda Strega.................................................................................................... 82
Batya Weinbaum............................................................................................. 83sinister wisdom #73 — The Art Issue

Melissa West.................................................................................................... 84
Jenna Weston.................................................................................................. 85
Judith K. Witherow......................................................................................... 88
zana................................................................................................................. 92
Pandoura Carpenter........................................................................................ 96
Sandy Calvo........................Tribute to Pandoura Carpenter............................ 97
Book Reviews:
Janell Moon........................but then you danced: tanka by Jeanne Lupton...... 107
Julie R. Enszer.....................Lesbian Liberation: Our Past Reconsidered
Different Daughters: A History of the Daughters of Bilitis and the Rise of the
Lesbian Rights Movement by Marcia M. Gallo, and From the Closet To the
Courts by Ruth Simpson............................................................................ 108
Contributors’ Notes...................................................................................... 111
Lesbian Art Books......................................................................................... 119
Books Received............................................................................................. 120
Ads................................................................................................................ 121
Back Issues.................................................................................................... 126
Subscription Rates......................................................................................... 127
Upcoming Issues: Call for Material............................................................... 128

Appreciations:Thank you to the following supporters for theirgenerous donations to Sinister Wisdom: Aimee B.,
Diana Cerise, Corey Deckerman, Marianne DeFrancis, Dolphin, Emile D’Orsay, Gail Dunlap,
M. Gonzalez, Jan Griesinger, Deborah H., Judy H.,
Tryna Hope, jody jewdyke, Theodora K., Joyce N.,
Rose Provenzano, Lauren Ravi, Margaret Reilly,
Lucinda Sangree, Linda Strega, Irene Weiss.

summer 2008

Notes for a Magazine

Fran Day
Sebastopol, Californiasinister wisdom #73 — The Art Issue

Sierra Lonepine Briano

Los Zapatos. Ink on paper. [Turn 90˚CCW]summer 2008

Dean Brittingham

Untitled. ©Dean Brittingham Photography.

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sinister wisdom #73 — The Art Issue

Dean Brittingham

Untitled. ©Dean Brittingham Photography.

summer 2008

Dean Brittingham

Untitled. ©Dean Brittingham Photography.

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sinister wisdom #73 — The Art Issue

Dean Brittingham

Untitled. ©Dean Brittingham Photography.

summer 2008

Lynn Brown

Forest Light.

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Lynn Brown

Forestville Tree.

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Lynn Brown

Harding Mine, Picuris Mou n tain.

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Lynn Brown

Snodrift.

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13

Cathy CadeBus Stop: Sister Comrade: An Evening of Words and Music Celebrating the Lives ofAudre Lorde and Pat Parker, Oakland, California.

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Lenore Chinn

Jean at Home. (Jean Weisinger, photographer.) Ultrachrome print. ©2003.

summer 2008

Lenore Chinn

Kenya. (Kenya Briggs, filmmaker/activist.) Ultrachrome print. ©2004.

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Lenore Chinn

The Rock. (Teresa Scherzer and partner, poet/artist Victoria Lena Manyarrows.)
36”x48” Acrylic on canvas. ©1998

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Karen Cooper

Untitled.

[Turn 90˚CW]

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Tee A. Corinne

Untitled. “Tee A. Corinne Papers, Coll. 263, Special Collections and University
Archives, University of Oregon Libraries.”summer 200819

Tee A. Corinne

Untitled. “Tee A. Corinne Papers, Coll. 263, Special Collections and University
Archives, University of Oregon Libraries.”

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Tee A. Corinne

Untitled. “Tee A. Corinne Papers, Coll. 263, Special Collections and University
Archives, University of Oregon Libraries.”

Untitled. “Tee A. Corinne Papers, Coll. 263, Special Collections and University
Archives, University of Oregon Libraries.”summer 2008

Jan Couvillon

Untitled.

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Max Dashu

Amazon Dance. 1979.

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Max Dashu

Release. 1992.

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Max Dashu

Xi Wang Mu. 2000.

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Fran Day

Untitled.

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Francine

Untitled.

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Francine

Untitled. 	

[Turn 90˚CW]

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Francine

Untitled.

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Francine

Untitled.

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Francine

Untitled.

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Tina Freimuth

Aspens.

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Tina Freimuth

Protected by the Crones.

[Turn 90˚CCW]summer 2008

Tina Freimuth

Silent Giants.

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Tina Freimuth

Spring 2004.

[Turn 90˚CCW]summer 2008

Kim Fusch

Wish List for Living On My Own Land.

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Diane Germain

You Make Me Feel Like Dancing. 2008.

summer 2008

Diane Germain

Outside the Ocean Beach Fire Station. 1978.

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Marjorie Greenhut

Grass. 2007.

[Turn 90˚CCW]summer 2008

Marjorie Greenhut

Figs.

[Turn 90˚ CW]

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Marjorie Greenhut

Sunflowers. 2006.

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Marjorie Greenhut

Artsprings Winter Ice. 2007. [Turn 90˚CW]

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Morgan Gwenwald

Brooklyn Bridge.

summer 2008

Morgan Gwenwald

Overlook.

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Morgan Gwenwald

Untitled.

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Morgan Gwenwald

Untitled.

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sinister wisdom #73 — The Art Issue

Virginia Harris

Random IX, Front, Quilt.

summer 2008

Virginia Harris

Random IX, Back, Quilt.

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HarvestOwl Farm, circa 1978.

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jody jewdyke

Untitled.

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jody jewdyke

Untitled.

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jody jewdyke

Untitled.

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jody jewdyke

Untitled.

summer 2008

Verlena Johnson

Self Portrait, 1991. Charcoal on paper, 18”x24.”

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Verlena Johnson

Self Portrait, 1993. Pencil on paper, 11”x 17.”

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Verlena Johnson

Starry Starry Night (Self Portrait), 2001. Oil Pastel on paper, 20”x 26.” (Originalin color.)

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sinister wisdom #73 — The Art Issue

Verlena Johnson

Self Portrait, 2004. Ink on paper, 11”x 14.”

summer 2008

Nancy E. Lake

Santa Rosa Creek.

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Nancy E. Lake

All My Critters.

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Nancy E. LakeIn Memory of Susie.

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Nancy E. Lake

Sunshine Sonoma County.

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Sue Lenaerts

Mushroom.

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Sue Lenaerts

Ginger Lily.

[Turn 90˚CCW]summer 2008

Sue Lenaerts

Astilbe.

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Jane Levin

New Zealand Moonflowers.

summer 2008anna-marie lopez

Bath.

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sinister wisdom #73 — The Art Issueanna-marie lopez

The Plea: A Self-Portrait.

summer 2008anna-marie lopez

Maiden at Well.

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Virginia May

The Egg. Ink on paper.

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Virginia May

The Tree. Ink on paper.

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Stacey McCaig

Entrance, Bundaberg, Australia.

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Stacey McCaig

Bottle Tree Bark, Queensland, Australia.

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Nancy Nau

Untitled.

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Nancy Nau

Untitled.

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OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change)

Hands: Shevy Healey and Ruth Silver. Translation of Hebrew inscription on rings:“You are my beloved and I am yours.”

summer 2008

PGar

Circle of Arms. Manipulated digital scan of a manipulated silver print.

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Sudie Rakusin

Companions. Pen and ink with water-soluble graphite, 14”x 18.5” ©Sudie
Rakusin.

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Sudie Rakusin

Sisters. Pen and ink with water-soluble graphite, 14”x 18.5” ©Sudie Rakusin.

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Sudie Rakusin

Untitled. Pen and ink with water-soluble graphite, 14”x 18.5” ©Sudie Rakusin.

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Sudie Rakusin

Watchful. Pen and ink with water-soluble graphite, 14”x 18.5” ©Sudie Rakusin.

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Sudie Rakusin

Longing. Pen and ink with water-soluble graphite, 14”x 18.5” ©Sudie Rakusin.

summer 2008

Annie Soper

Cutting Boards and Gourd. (Photo taken by Roxanna N. Fiamma)

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Linda Strega

Untitled.

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Batya Weinbaum

Celebration. Mixed Media.

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Melissa West

Lyell Branch of the Tuolumne River, Pothole #2. Ink and acrylic on paper, 2006.

summer 2008

Jenna Weston

From Inside Out. Acrylic on paper.

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Jenna Weston

Lighthold. Wild grapevines and handmade Abaca paper with garlic leaves.

summer 2008

Jenna Weston

Winged Pages (Detail). Twigs and handmade Abaca paper with garlic leaves.
[Turn 90˚ CW]

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Judith K. Witherow

Gray on Gray Butterfly.

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Judith K. Witherow

Spider Web with Dew.

[Turn 90˚CW]

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Judith K. Witherow

Mud Wasp Nest.

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Judith K. Witherow

Nature’s Carpentry - Woodpeckers.

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zana

Untitled.

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zana

Untitled.

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zana

Untitled.

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zana

Untitled.

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Pandoura Carpenter

Collage #4.

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Sandy Calvo

Pandoura’s Box: A Tribute to Pandoura Carpenter
Dedicated, once again, to the loving memory of Pandoura
Carpenter and all those who knew and loved her.
Prologue
You profoundly changed and shaped my life for over 25 years.
Some people did not know you, Pandoura. Never had the immense joy and challengeof knowing you. They have no context for this telling. They do not know that you were
probably the biggest person I have ever met and the most unique, generous, gifted, “themost-fully-yourself ” person I have ever encountered.
In being you, you made us all each more ourselves. It is true.
They do not know up close the community now in grief over the loss of you.
All of us: African-American lesbians and lesbians of all colors and backgrounds,
heterosexual persons from all walks of life and all places, poets-writers-activistsmusicians-singers, spiritualists, persons with disabilities, performers, visual artists, Jews,
Catholics, atheists, agnostics,
protesters, painters, drummers,
jokers, readers, story-tellers,
cooks, teachers, observers of thehuman condition, champions
for social justice, women,children, men, caretakers of theelderly, learners, professionals,
undocumented
workers,
listeners, and deeply humanhuman beings as, yourself, dearone, once were!
But some. .. . Some do notknow this deep loss of you.
1
It is about 2:45 pm, on
November 9, 2007, a Friday.  
Leo Fonseca, the campus aide,in his late fifties, fit, amicableand indispensable to me in mywork as an Assistant Principal,
Photo of Pandoura Carpenter by Cathy Cade98sinister wisdom #73 — The Art Issue

and I scour the neighborhood in his huge green Ford truck. Rumor has it thata fight is to break out. And because we are responsible for the welfare of our
middle schoolers until they arrive safely home, we drive at a slow crawl, looking
for suspects. The “suspects” are our  own students— whom we might recognize as  
potential ruffians “starting mess” in this suburban neighborhood of neat houses,with old dogs lurking in the yards, late roses still blooming, and lawns and shrubs
well-groomed by the underpaid Latino gardeners who visit sometimes once or
twice a week.
We spy a few young people we recognize close to the elementary school. I leapout of the high truck, a monumental strain on my short legs. Nearly breaking myneck, I stabilize myself and ask, “What are you doing here? Where do you live? And
why aren’t you there?”  They are used to my multi-pronged questions and reply,“Nothing. Over there. We’re going.” I give them a stern warning of wanting notrouble, they lower their eyes, murmur some kind of acknowledgement that theircode was cracked and that the would-be-rumble has been ruined. “Yes, Ms. Calvo.
No. We won’   t, Ms. Calvo. See you Monday, Ms. Calvo.  Have a nice weekend,
Ms. Calvo.” I then give them another warning look and nearly break my neck inreverse trying to get back into Leo’s truck.  He asks me in Spanish, “Todo bien?”  I
say, “Yeah. I don’t think there’ll be any fights now. We drive back to school, taking
a different route.   We find other suspects along the way.   We give them stern
warnings, and they also wish us happy weekends.
After getting in and out of Leo’s truck three or four times, and after a long day
and week, I am exhausted.  We drive the short distance back to school, but not
before hearing on both walkie-talkies, Leo’s and mine, sound off, simultaneously,“The principal wants to see everyone in her office for a short calendar meeting
about events scheduled for next week.” I reach for my walkie-talkie and give receiptof the order/message. “I copy,” I say and add, “I’ll be right there. All clear out here.
I think we averted whatever was planned.”
When I walk into the principal’s office with my calendar in hand, I sit next to
our Program Improvement Coach, Vahn, and one of the counselors, Diane. The
other counselor, Kris, and the Principal, Jeanne, sit directly opposite me.  
“Are you alright?” Kris asks me, looking directly into my face.   “I am notsure,” I reply.  “Suddenly I don’t feel so well.”  “It’s from chasing kids all over theneighborhood,” Diana suggests.  “You’re really dehydrated. Drink some water.”“Yeah, get her some water, will you?” Jeanne directs Kris.
I sit disoriented for a bit and suddenly a small bottle of Crystal Springs water isplaced in front of me, and as I reach to drink, my cell phone rings deep in the front
pocket of my pants.  I reach in, excuse myself and look to see who it is.  “It’s mydaughter,” I explain.  “She never calls me at work. It must be important. I’ll takeit in the other room.”
The details blur now. I don’t recall exactly what Alexis said, but she let me knowthat my dear friend and her dear godmother, Pandoura, was dead.  “We just heard alittle while ago. Someone called Judy. Pandoura was all by herself in her apartment.  

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I don’t know very many other details. How am I going to live without her?”  Alexis
asks me this question as my mind is trying to make sense, still, of what she is tellingme. I say, “I don’t know. I don’t know.”  And I start to cry. And then Alexis is crying
too and one of the persons pops out of the principal’s office and asks, “Is everything
OK with your daughter?” “It’s not her,” I answer. It is my dear friend Pandoura.
She has died.”
I leave whoever that person was in the conference room where I had taken thecall and walk to my office in tears. The office staff stares at me and then exchange
questioning, compassionate glances as I pass.  I close the door behind me and try to
make sense of the continuing conversation with Alexis, half-crying, half-consoling,
but mostly in shock, disbelief, and mounting grief.
2
I see Pandoura in my dream wearing a purple-burgundy hooded jacked like the one
she was wearing in the beautiful picture of her that Amy had shown me of a time she
and Pandoura had gone to Mount Tamalpais. (Purples, lavenders, and maroons werealways Pandoura’s colors.)
She is a gigantic spirit (as she always was in life), floating in mid-air.
I understand, somehow, that as a spirit Pandoura has been assigned a job. She is tolisten to all these women in bands and single performers and give a recommendation,using a long list of criteria, she obviously has memorized, to the Higher Ups/Higher
Up? (God?) as to who is the most deserving of a long and fruitful career and success as aperformer. “A kind of ‘Destiny Idol’” Marisa offers when I tell her the dream. “Yes,“I say, “Exactly something like that.”   
Some of the bands are comprised of young women rockers or hip-hop artists. Others
are older, solo artists: women performing “mellower” songs or jazz. Pandoura loves
this gig, and is happy in the dream: quiet and floating, her full attention given to theperformers.
Then I am aware of myself. I am in an audience that is also watching these
performances. I turn to the left and see Pandoura. She is still floating, but now next
to a table. On that table, there are two tan-brown ceramic bowls, wide at the bottom
and narrow at the neck. In the dream, I decipher that one of them is filled with drylavender and the other with dry fennel. Pandoura indicates them to me and then says,“Burn some of these ...” Or perhaps she said what they were, “Burn some lavender andsome fennel.” And then I woke up.
3
Marisa is ill. She is a beautiful, large Filipina woman who has been my loverfor five years now. Marisa identifies as a “soft butch,” something I like to tease her
about.... “Emphasis on the soft,” I like to tell her, because she is a gentle soul, withlaughing eyes, and a welcoming way that lets the whole world in with her kindness.

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But, now she is coughing next to me in bed. Her books are piled on her night tableclose to her. Bailey, the beautiful gray-pink and white striped kitten-cat is asleep;
stomach exposed and paws in the air next to her head.   When Marisa coughs, shewakes up, and then after inquiring how she is, I tell her my dream.
I wonder about the properties of fennel and lavender. I do not know anything
specifically about them. I know I could “Google them” and find out. However,there, next to Marisa, I say, “What do you have in that book about horticulture,
there next to you?” “Does it say anything about the ‘more spiritual qualities’ oflavender and fennel?”“Oh, I don’t know. I don’t think much.”  We decide to look, anyway. In it, wefind out that fennel can “dispel distrust” and that lavender can “diffuse fear” and“promote courage.”  “Cool.” I pronounce. “I will get some of each and burn them,
just like Pandoura told me to in the dream.”
4
I ask Marisa the next day, “Do we have any fennel in the house?” She says, “I
think there may be some in the spice rack.” Sure enough I find some, nice and aged
and dry. I wonder how I will get the dry lavender but do not fret over it.
That evening, I am at school late. Everyone has left and being late autumn, it isdark as I emerge out of the school office, car keys in hand.  In full stride towards mycar, I spy a tall plant in a planter box directly in front of the school office.  I smile
as I recognize it to be a bush of dry lavender reaching towards the cold night sky. I
look around feeling like a vandal and work hard to wrench a good-sized bunch of
the woody lavender stems, with their dry blossoms intact.
After dinner, I set a bowl with dry fennel on our altar, which is a small table witha stone top, situated in a cranny in our dining room, created by the winding of ourstairs in our condo.  I also crop the long lavender stems and set them in an empty
water glass on the altar.  They are beautiful, these dry herbs, I think.
5
Marisa and I continue with bronchitis and colds through Thanksgiving. We
decide not to go out and decide to order a pre-prepared Thanksgiving meal from
Whole Foods.
Thanksgiving is a particularly emotionally charged day. A day I have always
connected with Pandoura and her love for food and cooking.
This Thanksgiving Day it seems the opposite of Pandoura’s way of doing things--that is, to be neglecting the cooking at our house. There is no planning, no
shopping, no storing, no cleaning, no chopping, no steaming, no baking, nogrilling, no frying. There are no smells. There is no heat. There is no fussing. There
are no pans to scour, afterwards. Later the lefts-overs stay in the pre-packaged
containers in which they came: neatly lined up in the refrigerator.

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I reminisce about all of the amazing food Pandoura had always  prepared fromscratch, with love and skill: sweet potato pie, greens, cobblers, turkey, muffins, rice,beans, and whatever other delicacies she would “get into her head to invent” from
whatever leftovers were in the house. I was missing her food and her generositywith it. But mostly I was missing her companionship that I had enjoyed on many,
many Thanksgivings over the years.
Instead, it was a quiet almost sanitized day of being home sick with Marisa,
heating up the food that she picked up from the store, and being thankful, not ina sarcastic way, but in a deeply grounded, quiet, and most basic way.
6
The Saturday after Thanksgiving, my nephew, Alerik comes to visit us fromSouthern California. He wants us to meet his girlfriend, Jessica, and they arrive at
our place in San Mateo with another young couple like themselves who are living
in Oakland.
They are aware that we are still recovering from our bout with bronchitis and thesefour young people are gentle, warm, smart, and close with us. The conversation
moves through many topics, but mostly there is a concentration on their emerging
dedication to social justice and living lives dedicated to progressive causes. They
seem young and “in discovery” to me.
Eventually, I get enough energy to cook up a turkey soup made from all of theleftovers and invite them to share it with us. They dig in joyfully, biting at chunksof fresh buttered French bread that I have also offered for the meal, while talking,listening, and sharing.
The exchange during this brief visit is good and deep and I kept thinking
Pandoura would have loved to have met these young people who are moving in theworld with a sense of purpose.  
Alerik and his little crew do not linger and are gone before 9 pm. I decide after
they have left to finally burn the dry lavender and fennel on the altar. I sprinkle
both of these herbs over the tops of some short votive candles that I have placed ona small glass platter. The lavender sprigs catch on fire and fall into the melted wax,
the fennel also catches on fire, falling within the flames and the wax. Soon, a sweet,
herby smell fills the air. It feels encompassing and encouraging. We are exhausted
after  having a quiet “slowing down” for the evening and we have cleaned up, fed
the four cats, cleaned their litter boxes, and  have closed windows and shutters, andcompleted all other parts of our nightly routine. I check the lit candles on the glass
plate before heading upstairs. Everything seems to be turning off as the candles
have very low fires and the sprigs of lavender and the fennel have tiny flames as
they float on the melted wax.
I go upstairs. Read my novel in bed, surrounded by the coziness of the cats
cuddled on the bed with us. I drift off to sleep. In my sleep I hear some kind ofbreaking sound and the next thing I know Marisa is sitting straight up in bed

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yelling, “Fire!”  I come to consciousness right away also sitting up, then bolting outof the bed as I see a large glow from the stairwell, where at the bottom of which, I
knew I had left the candles dwindling down to turning themselves off. But this did
not happen. They had not turned themselves off. Instead, a large bouquet of flamessits atop of the small table. It is truly frightening.
Marisa has run in front of me down the stairs, but I am close behind. She tries
to blow the fire down and it only gains greater force. “No. I think we have to snuff
it to get it out,” I direct quietly. “With what?” Marisa desperately asks at no one
in particular. “The towels---the towels on top of the dryer,” I offer frantically. The
next thing I know, Marisa is throwing a heavy, wet towel on the fire. It works andthe towel snuffs out the fire.  We breathe heavily and with relief as we becomeaware more acutely of the smoke alarm that has also been blaring for the last few
minutes.  Marisa goes from the altar back up the stairs quickly to disarm the alarm.
I stand in front of the ashy mess, noting that the glass plate in which I had placed
the candles has broken in pieces. The wax has run all over the stony top of the altar,
but curiously enough, I note that NOTHING else has caught on fire---not theleft-over sprig of dry lavender that had remained in the empty  water glass nor thelarge stems of dry reeds I had also placed on the altar. Only a contained area hadcaught on fire and was, thankfully,now, snuffed out.
The alarm has quieted. Marisa shouts in a muffled way to me, “Is everything
alright?” I say, “Yes. How about up there?”  She sighs deeply, and responds, “Yes.
Yes, it is.” As I plod up the stairs to meet up with Marisa at the top of the stairs,
I think to myself. “I know Pandoura had something to do with this. I should know
better than to mess with the spirit of Pandoura.”
7
My friend Marty and I write together on a rainy Sunday afternoon about aweek after the fire. I begin to write this piece. I tell her about Pandoura’s passing,the dream, the fire….Marty laughs. She says to me, “You don’t think Pandoura
was going to insinuate, even in the after life, that obtaining a life where courage,
honesty, and dispelling distrust and fear are as easy as burning dry lavender anddry fennel on your altar, do you?  That Pandoura has had the last laugh at yourexpense.”Annoyed at what seems to be an astute and accurate observation on Marty’s part,I reluctantly find myself agreeing with Marty’s analysis. “That Pandoura,” I whisper
under my breath with annoyance, admiration, grief, and love. . . “I miss you. ...”
8
Judy, Pandoura’s life partner of over 28 years comes over. She brings pictures of
Pandoura that Marisa and I have agreed to scan and organize into a power point
presentation infused with music for Pandoura’s memorial to be held on January
20th, 2008 the day before Martin Luther King’s birthday is to be commemorated.

summer 2008103

I am overwhelmed looking at these amazing images of Pandoura and her family
and friends over the years. I am honored to partake in this task of synchronizingthese images with music in her memory, a gift to a community greatly suffering
her loss.
Later, Judy and I walk around the lagoon that is just in front of our home. It is agorgeous, crisp late autumn day. We walk in quiet, close grief, as if we are, together
absorbing the truth of Pandoura’s parting from this life.
Judy asks me, “How did Pandoura impact your life?”
I think for a bit and answer her from deep within me, “I knew Pandoura since
I was a young lesbian at the age of 25.  For the last 25 years or so she changed andshaped my life profoundly.”“I know, Judy responds, quietly, “But how?” she insists.
Again, I retreat into thought and then reply, “In any way that anyone could havemade me feel shame about who I was, Pandoura made me feel pride.   If someone
thought I should feel shame for being a lesbian, Pandoura did not. When someone
made me feel as though I was something less because I was an immigrant who had tolearn to speak English, she did not. If someone thought that being a Latina was to beridiculed or put down, Pandoura delighted in all aspects of my culture teasing about
our food, and language, and admiring our customs and ways. If someone thought
I “should get a real job” because I was a teacher and worked with young people,
Pandoura always saw this as the most worthy work: to touch the lives of youth andbring them to positive productivity; to teach them that they were “young, gifted andBlack”, or Latino, or whatever they were, was “the highest call,” as far as Pandoura wasconcerned. She believed profoundly in education and the empowerment of youth, nottowards their later life as adults, but as youth, thriving and bringing forth all their freshenergy, enthusiasm and possibility.  If anyone thought there should be shame in being
fat, Pandoura taught me there was the possibility of positive body image  and that alarge woman can be beautiful and partake fully in everything: swimming, dancing,table tennis, any sport, sex, everything!  If anyone were to make me feel shame forhaving a daughter with a disability or feeling shame for bringing forth a family led by
two lesbians of color, Pandoura cheered the effort. She celebrated my forays into thevisual arts, complimenting and encouraging my artwork. She loved my writing and wewere writers together.  Any place that anyone could have ever made me feel shame or
discomfort, Pandoura brought forth pride.  We all know what amazing hugs Pandoura
could give. Those hugs were symbolic, too. She embraced me, but not only me and allof whom I was, but all that each of us was, could be, and wanted to be. . .”That was my answer to Judy.
9
Marisa and I stay up until four o’clock on the morning the night before thememorial putting together an amazing Power Point that threads together Pandoura’s
life through images and music.

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Pandoura’s brother Mark, his son, Mark Junior, and Judy come over earlier in theafternoon to collect the pictures we have been scanning for days. Judy had hurt her
knees having taken a tumble earlier in the day and was limping. After allowing her
to ice her knees while Mark and Markie-Mark and I take a walk around the lagoon,
they soon leave. I feel moved by their brief presence in our home. Something I
cannot quite explain.
10
At the memorial, held at the Redwood Community Center in Berkeley, many
persons connected with the many sides of Pandoura and from many walks of life
come together. Friends, family members representing a wide array of interests,
causes, and aspects of Pandoura’s life come together in celebration of her life andin grief over her loss.
At the memorial, women tell amazing stories about Pandoura. They highlighther courage, spunk, commitment, her passions, her pranks, her reverence for lifeand her irreverent, indomitable spirit. They all talk about how she changed andshaped their lives with love, humor, grief, memory, pain, admiration, nostalgia. We
cannot gather up in a small way all that Pandoura was or represented.
My daughter, Alexis, speaks, haltingly and hauntingly beautifully of her grief.  
Pandoura had been in her life ever since Alexis was a year old. Now at the ageof 25 (the same age at which I had met Pandoura) Alexis stands in front of thegroup, appearing frail and strong at the same time: this valiant, striking young
woman whom Pandoura assisted through many of her challenges with Asperger
Syndrome. Alexis makes two points that really stick in my mind, besides thetellings of the “wild Wednesday” excursions Pandoura used to take her on. Alexis
offers, “Pandoura lived in an unexpected way.  ...and she died in the same way that
she lived: in an unexpected way.”
Alexis finishes her sharing about Pandoura and how much she will miss her bypostulating that “perhaps now Pandoura has a very important role to fill wherever
she is as a spirit, because “Pandoura is now an ancestor, and that is a very big rolefor her to have to fill.”  
Alexis’s comments remind me briefly of my dream in which Pandoura was busy
as a spirit, fulfilling her role in choosing the fate of performers as a judge in what
Marisa had referred to as “a kind of Destiny Idol.”I, too, speak and tell about how Pandoura changed and shaped my life. The
words tumble out of my mouth. I tell about how I heard about her death, thedream, the fire, how I answered Judy’s question: how in every way that anyone
could have made me feel SHAME, Pandoura exacted PRIDE.   I end by saying
I agree with Marty’s analysis. Though there was always encouragement from
Pandoura, she knew that the hardships and challenges of life couldn’t be solved ineasy, passive ways: No. One could not just burn some dry lavender and fennel andhope that distrust would be dispelled, and courage and honesty would suddenlysummer 2008

105

flow. Pandoura would have encouraged the burning of these herbs, but would  havelooked  any one of us right in the eye, and told us not to kid ourselves: these things
are not so easily obtained but have to be fought for and lived in life, in our own
flesh, day to day and wrenched  out of the experience of life, itself. “Pandoura,” I
conclude to the group in grief, “knew this. She would have been amused at any
shortcut any of us would have tried to take. She knew the essence of our lives
demands that we live out the realities that bring forth courage and honesty. . . She
knew this as sure as she was Pandoura.”
I hear applause at the end of my words, which startle and overwhelm me as acelebration of Pandoura’s legacy and a deep nostalgic missing of Pandoura overtakes
me in front of all of these people.
It is real: she is gone. Pandoura has long moved into the sweet hereafter. . .
11
The Power Point presentation follows. The large group of women and men
respond with tears, whoops, oohs and ahs, and inconsolable crying from many. We
share a saying good bye to this amazing woman together as we watch pictures ofher, her family in Rochester, her family and friends in Denver, images that capture
her many causes: as a political activist, writer, performer, mediator, director, andjazz aficionado.  We delight in the images of her tender, sometimes tumultuous,
close, and inspiring relationship with Judy. We see images of her artwork, herphotographs (yes, including all those toilets in pastel colors in a heap) and of her
dear friends and family in the Bay Area.  The music moves all of us as we hear
Oscar Petersen, Tony Bennett, Ella Fitzgerald Tracy Chapman, Sweet Honey in
the Rock, and conclude with Nina Simone’s “I wish I knew. …”  We end withmultiple images of Pandoura herself, laughing, standing out in nature, swimming,
playing ping pong, wielding a cane as if to hit someone, listening, reading, loving,  
drumming, playing piano, writing, thinking---being Pandoura.
The one of the last captions reads: Pandoura: forever in our hearts.  And the very
last graphic on the screen with the credit reads:  Marisa Martinez and Sandy Calvo,©2008. When the last numbers of 2008 roll up onto the screen, I think to myself,“Damn. Pandoura did not join us here. Here in 2008.” That says it all.
Afterwards, we all talk, hug, cry, reminisce, eat, and watch videos of Pandoura’s
performances with WryCrips. Women make art projects of little boxes assembled
with pictures of Pandoura and of her art on them. They select  stones to take withthem, because Pandoura loved stones and rocks. Women read flyers, converse, andlook through publications focused on Pandoura’s many, many causes. There are
myriads of these: old and new. Copies of Pandoura’s artwork and some original
work adorn the walls, as do more pictures of our dear Pandoura.  
Soon, I find myself saying good-bye to the roomful of people that I have known
and with whom I have shared Pandoura for many, many years. As we attempt toexit, many individuals in the room thank Marisa and I for putting together the106sinister wisdom #73 — The Art Issue

presentation and many want access to it, to the pictures, the music, and to theartwork. This is more than what we can take in at this point and arrange to answer
these requests, later.
12
The world is a diminished place without Pandoura in it. But it is also a moreamazing, truthful, safe place with possibilities for many, for all---- because Pandoura
La Rose Carpenter loved us in her time here, and because we loved her.
I miss her dearly, as does all of the community that reveled in all that she brought
to us, all that she was, and finally, all that she asked each of us to be . . . individually
and as a community.

Pandoura Carpenter (1948 - 2007) was an artist, writer, political activist,
mediator, and multicultural maven. She participated in the Oakland Black
Writer’s Guild, was an early member of the Mexican Museum, co-founded theBlack Lesbian Newsletter, edited the anthology Ordinary Women Extraordinary
Lives, supported the Black Repertory Theater in Berkeley, directed a play at Brava
Theater, and wrote and acted for Wry Crips Disabled Women’s Theater. She wasa founding member of Progressives Challenging Anti-Semitism multicultural
support group. As a taxi cab driver, she was known as “Pat” and was loved bymany of her regular fares. She was currently working on a book about her
cab driving experiences at the North Berkeley Senior Center writing class.
She has sold her artwork at the Women’s Crafts Fair at Fort Mason. Pandoura
was a skilled mediator with Conciliation Forum of Oakland where she taught
mediation skills to young people. She was a mediator at East Bay Community
Mediation in Berkeley at the time of her death.  She was a member of Kehilla
Community Synagogue in Oakland and a member of Lavender Seniors inBerkeley. Pandoura was a natural coalition builder. In addition to engaging
with many African and Caribbean cultures, she embraced her family’s Native
American (Powhaten) ancestry and supported Native Rights. She attended
many February commemorations of Executive Order 9066, which internedJapanese Americans. And also witnessed the testimonies which lead toreparations for those interned. In the wake of the first Gulf War, she spoke
up for the rights of Muslims, Arabs, and Jews. She presented at FACING A
CHALLENGE WITHIN, a multicultural conference on anti-Semitism inOakland. Her advocacy for Black, Jewish, Arab, Native American, Asian and
Latina/o Rights was melded with her concern for Lesbian, Gay and Disability
Rights. And, as a large woman, she fought size prejudice daily.

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Book Reviews
Janell Moon, Reviewer
Jeanne Lupton. but then you danced: tanka. Raw Art Press, 2006.
Jeanne Lupton’s but then you danced is a whimsical and serious portrait of
the poet’s life told from the perspective of her later years in 47 tanka and sevencutouts. Tanka is a Japanese poetic form from which haiku later derived, and thisancient form is well suited to the poet’s very current story.
60th September
honeybees wildin yellow blossoms
I was bornfor middle age

A reading of but then you danced offers anexperience of the joys and anguish of thisshared life in a body on earth.
crossing the Bay Bridgewith a friend who fears heights
I do not mention
that once, in despair, I
stopped my car just here, and jumped

With fresh perception and crisp images
Lupton’s short poems evoke a life well lived
outside conventional stereotypes.
mondo condo
a neighbor’s passionate cries
crescendo
piercing my celibate dreamnow I love her too

There are many well-crafted poetry books on the market. Lupton’s book offers,
in addition, a bright spark of awareness of what it is to live and love.
your touch
unshrouds the radianceat my centerI catch my breath
rebornI highly recommend but then you danced, available from the author at jeany98@
aol.com.

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sinister wisdom #73 — The Art Issue

Julie R. Enszer, Reviewer

Lesbian Liberation:
Our Past Reconsidered

Gallo, Marcia M. Different Daughters. New York, NY: Carroll & Graf, 2006.
274 pp. Cloth.
Simpson, Ruth. From the Closet To the Courts. Washington, DC: Take RootConsulting, 2007. 176 pp. Paper.
Marcia M. Gallo’s Different Daughters: A History of the Daughters of Bilitis andthe Rise of the Lesbian Rights Movement is an extraordinary contribution to Lesbian
herstory. Gallo’s comprehensive history of the Daughters of Bilitis (pronounced,
I learned for the first time, Bill-EE-tis, and a reference to a mythical female
who seduced Sappho, invented by the nineteenth century poet, Pierre Louys) is
meticulously researched, engagingly written, and a treasure trove of informationand insight. Different Daughters chronicles the Daughters of Bilitis (DOB) fromthe initial organizing in the mid-1950s through its eventual demise in the late1970s.
This immensely readable book draws on well over two dozen interviews withformer DOB members as well as significant archival research including the review
of numerous Lesbian publications from the time. Gallo brings to life both the daily
lives of lesbians in the 1950s and 60s and she puts the organization and its work
into a thoughtful and meaningful historical context.
Many things are striking while reading this history. Gallo demonstrates a clear
continuum of activism on behalf of
lesbians or “female homosexuals” since
the second World War. This continuity
is both meaningful and inspiring;prior to Gallo’s book, it was in dangerof being forgotten. In addition torecounting – and celebrating – thelives of dozens of women who madeDOB operate, Gallo also illuminates
the ways controversies have been
persistent in the Lesbian community.
Gallo explores the challenges Lesbians
encountered working with gay men
in the homophile movement because
of sexism – especially as the feminist
movement began growing dramaticallyin 1968 and 1969. She gives appropriate
attention to the questions of race insummer 2008

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DOB – a multiracial organization struggling with racism internally and externallyduring the Civil Rights movement.
Gallo reconstructs the controversy at the 1973 West Coast Lesbian Conference
held in Los Angeles. On the opening night, Friday April 13th, Beth Elliot wasscheduled to perform. Elliot was the vice president of the San Francisco Daughtersof Bilitis and a male-to-female transsexual. When she was on stage, a former friend
screamed, “There’s a man on stage,” and, according to Gallo, this resulted in “furor,
nearly tearing apart the conference.” By looking at these and other controversies
with a clear and inquisitive eye, Gallo provides both historical context to her readersand opens contemporary possibilities for new and different resolutions today.
Different Daughters consistently reminded me of the significance of books likeit to the lesbian community. We need books like this: thoughtful, well-researched,well-written histories of our past that are accessible to general readers. We needmore of them. Different Daughters also reminded me through the stories of the
DOB of the importance of books, magazines, and all kinds of printed materials
that can be circulated among our communities to talk with one another and engage
one another. The stories that women shared in the book about The Ladder, thepublication of DOB, were passionate and inspiring. Even though we live in an age
during which communication is greatly facilitated by new technologies, Different
Daughters reminded me of the significance of physical printed objects recording
our lives.
Another book published recently, From the Closet to the Courts, also holds
important history for Lesbians. In 1969, at the first meeting of the Daughtersof Bilitis that Ruth Simpson attended, she thought, “I have come home to mypeople.” Simpson became involved with the Daughters of Bilitis and eventually
was the President of the New York chapter. In 1976, Simpson’s book, From the
Closet to the Courts, was published by The Viking Press. It has just been re-released
for its thirtieth anniversary.
Simpson’s book is an engaging account of her activism on behalf of Lesbians.
Some of the most delightful stories are of young women – and their families– calling her and her lover, Ellen, because they were publicly listed as membersof DOB. Simpson takes on the issues blocking Lesbian equality head on. With
chapters covering families, the church, feminism, psychiatry, and the courts, among
others, this is an interesting and comprehensive report on one woman’s perspective
on Lesbianism in the mid-1970s.
I wouldn’t have known about this book without receiving a review copy of thisnew release as a 30th Anniversary Edition, and Gallo didn’t cite the book – or Ruth
Simpson – in Different Daughters. From the Closet to the Courts is a delightful bookand an engaging read, but I wonder about the importance of re-releasing books. A
quick Internet search told me that nearly two dozen copies of the original printingof this book as a mass paperback are available from various used book vendors
around the United States.

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sinister wisdom #73 — The Art Issue

While it is a fine edition that has been released on this 30th anniversary, toread From the Closet to the Courts beside Gallo’s Different Daughters is to see thelimitations of re-release clearly. There are aspects about the book that are as relevant
and timely, but there are also treatments and analyses in the book that are dated,occasionally embarrassingly so. The lens of retrospect is absent as it must be from a
reprint, but even Cheryl Jacques’ cursory introduction is missing the perspective of
history. Ultimately, what excites me about From the Closet to the Courts is what
the Lesbians who read this book might do with it along with further interviews andresearch to help us all understand more about our Lesbian heritage.
Meanwhile, for those looking for books from our Lesbian past, if you haveexhausted friends, the local libraries, and the interlibrary loan system, I recommend
bookfinder.com. By aggregating thousands of listings of used books, I’ve been able
to find some great lesbian-feminist gems from days past. There is much worth
reading from the past, but the most important thing, I believe, is to read it andthen to build on it. Write yourself; share new perspectives on Lesbian herstory instories, articles, and books with us all.
Julie R. Enszer is a poet and lesbian activist based in University Park, MD. You
can read more of her work at www.JulieREnszer.com.

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Contributor’s Notes
sierra lonepine briano: i am a 61 year old lesbian, living and working at artsprings
retreat for women artists and writers. i also spend as much time as i can travelingand leading art workshops for women in mexico. as a child i liked to make things
with my hands and play in the dirt. when i began going to school i was introduced
to pastels and did quite well with them.   however, my artistic desires were notfostered in my working class first generation italian family. it took about 30 years
for me to get to my true passion which is painting. i went to art school at age 35 andgraduated with a bfa at 39.  i have been painting and showing my work ever since.
color is my passion. that is one of the reasons that i find mexico inspiring. i also likeaddressing unpopular subjects. my latest body of work is entitled “immigration
reform.” in this work i depict members of the bush administration working in
the fields and doing other types of labor that is typically done by immigrants.
most of my work is figurative, big, bold and colorful. i want to make people look,
not that most artists don’t, but i like to create ‘in yer face’ kinds of paintings. iplan to continue making art until i take my last breath.....and maybe beyond. for
information about my artwork or tripout art and adventure vacations for women,
contact me at sierrabriano@att.net
Dean Brittingham: Award-winning photographer Dean Brittingham is alongtime radical lesbian feminist living in Sonoma County, California and finding
peace and love in the natural world.
Lynn Brown has always been a poet and lover of language, the creation ofgardens, vision and touch with the intention towards friendship and healing.
Cathy Cade has been photographing women at work, union women, lesbian
mothering, and lesbian feminists in the San Francisco Bay Area since the early
1970s. She has a business helping people tell their stories using their photographs.
She lives in Oakland and is working on an East Bay Lesbian Herstory project. Visit
www.CathyCade.com.
Sandy Calvo originally from Costa Rica, is an lesbian, writer, poet, visual artist
and long time educator.  Her writings have appeared in local publications. Her
artwork, which has appeared in magazines and publications such as the We’Moon
calendar, has been exhibited and collected throughout the Bay Area. Sandy iscurrently a middle school Assistant Principal in San Mateo where she is living withher partner, Marisa, and their four cats: Cosette, Jack, Bay, and Harley.
Lenore Chinn began painting when she was growing up in San Francisco’s
Richmond district, focusing on portraiture to explore the super-realistic depictionof a wide spectrum of people of color, lesbians and same sex couples. Employing acoded iconography rooted in a lesbian/gay cultural perspective, these images fuse

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sinister wisdom #73 — The Art Issue

an Asian aesthetic of sparseness and clarity with visual narratives that counteract
the “magic-truth rituals” of racial and gender construction. Chinn’s inclusion in
Harmony Hammond’s “Lesbian Art in America: A Contemporary History,” the firststudy of American lesbian visual artists, vastly expanded her national visibility. Her
portraits documenting the historical evolution of San Francisco’s queer community
challenge the social conventions that currently constitute the racialized order ofthings. The artist has been a founding member of Lesbians in the Visual Arts andQueer Cultural Center and is affiliated with the Asian American Women Artists
Association. For more information visit:
http://www.queerculturalcenter.org/Pages/Chinn/ChinIndex.html
Karen Cooper: retired park ranger 58, spending time in nature with friends,
cycling, kayaking and shooting photos.
Tee A. Corinne (1943 – 2006): A regular contributor to Sinister Wisdom, Tee
Corinne’s artwork has been identified with the journal since her cover and poster for
issue #3 in 1977. This beloved photograph was selected for the cover of Sinister Wisdom’s
30th Anniversary Celebration Issue. Tee was the author of one novel, three collections ofshort stories, and several poetry chapbooks. Her most recent book of art, Intimacies:
Photos by Tee A. Corinne, published by Last Gasp of San Francisco, was a Lambda
Literary Award finalist. A gifted and versatile artist, Tee worked with photography, line
drawing, paint, sculpture, ceramics and printing, and she also published erotic fiction
and poetry and reviews. Favorite cover artist for lesbian publisher Naiad, Corinne’s
work is found on bookshelves across the Lesbian Nation.
Jan Couvillon: I began my photo journey over forty years ago as a fine arts
photographer, took a side trip in photojournalism and quickly returned to fine art. I
not only love to find the delicate beauty in nature and cityscapes but to also portraythe quiet strength the beauty holds. I love to write and perform with Mothertongue
Feminist Readers Theater and I am a member of Old Lesbians Organizing for
Change (OLOC). I served on the board of Lesbians in the Visual Arts (LVA) andam currently Activities Manager for New Leaf Outreach to Elders.
Max Dashu is an independent scholar who founded the Suppressed Histories
Archives in 1970. She has built a collection of some 15,000 slides and 100 visualpresentations on global women’s history, spiritual traditions, and the origins ofdomination. See http://www.suppressedhistories.net, and for Max’s art, http://
www.maxdashu.net.
Fran Day is an activist, educator, writer, reader, editor, and vegetarian.  She wasborn in 1942 in Nebraska and grew up rural working class. She has been active innumerous social change movements and was part of the following collectives in
Denver, Colorado during the 70s: Big Mama Rag Newsjournal, Woman to Womansummer 2008

113

Bookcenter, and Women Against Violence Against Women (WAVAW). She
helped organize the first Take Back the Night March and Rally in Denver. She hashelped plan and organize many additional gatherings, forums, actions, speakouts,
readings, and events. She lives in northern California where she teaches part timeat Sonoma State University; she enjoys connecting with Lesbians around the world
through her work editing Sinister Wisdom Journal. She is passionate about Lesbian
culture, community and friendship.
Julie R. Enszer is a writer and lesbian activist based in University Park, Maryland.
You can read more of her work at www.JulieREnszer.com.
Roxanna N. Fiamma: I live in Northern California with my partner, Fran. I
have been a Lesbian Separatist since the mid 70s.
Francine, born in 1957, lives on land in France with another Lesbian. She isa plant and cat lover. She has Multiple Chemical Sensitivities. Never het, she
is interested in Lesbian culture, especially separatist, organic gardening, andconnecting with other Lesbian Separatists and Lesbian Feminists.
Tina L. Freimuth, is an ecofeminist publisher, artist and earth activist. She cofounded and publishes the WomanSource Rising News with her partner Barbara
Dickinson and guides the promotion of the We’Moon, through her work with MotherTongue Ink. She lives on 46 plus acres in Southern Oregon, desiring to create apermaculture design center that provides respite and environmental education andnetwork opportunities to traveling activists. She is a trained community organizer
with a Masters Degree in Social work from Boston University, and, an untrained
artist. She feels a deep kinship with trees, wondering if she ever was one in a former
life. Her oil paintings are bright and expressionistic, exaggerating the wild placeson this blessed Mother Earth. Tina can be reached at: treeesong@yahoo.com.
Kim Fusch is a wild Texan and world traveller who came to California to continue
her film industry work. Scleroderma nearly felled her and she moved up to Sonoma
County to realize her dream of living in the country, but be near big city hospitals
in San Francisco. Surviving the disease entailed time which she spent teachingherself desk-top publishing. This led to becoming Layout person for Women’s Voices
Neswpaper and later also Sinister Wisdom under Fran Day’s editorship. She considers
herself honored to contribute to these imporant publications and hopes to do sofor a long time. One of her favorite sayings is “Speak the Truth... and run away!”
Pat Gargaetas: I am PGar, photographing since 1967, working nearly exclusively
in black and white until 1990, doing portraiture, landscapes, urbanscapes,
shapescapes, bodyscapes. Using color, I photographed lesbians’ home altars,
the subject of a Masters thesis in Anthropology completed in 1993.  In 1996, I114

sinister wisdom #73 — The Art Issue

escaped urban environs with my life, if not my health, and for the next nine years
photographed my cat, the birds, my garden/shrine, the ever-changing daily views
from the Ledge on the Edge, 1600 feet up on Kaluna Cliff, Lost Coast, Turtle
Island.  In 2001, I began learning PhotoShop which gave me back photography,
lost to chemical sensitivities in the 90s.  I came down from the Ledge last year and
am Loose on Turtle Island, gleefully mining images from my files of numerous
negatives, scanning projects including the Altar Project, creating CafePress image
and commentary shops, practicing new tech skills with a digital camera, andgenerally trying to fulfill a mission to remain a practicing social irritant.
Diane F. Germain is a French-American Feminist-Lesbian psychiatric social
worker who created and conducted a strength group for Women Survivors ofIncest and/or Childhood Molest for five years. She was arrested and jailed forprotesting the objectification of women in the “Myth CaliPORNia Kontest” in1986. She was a staff cartoonist for Hot Wire: The Journal of Women’s Music andCulture of Chicago and for Lesbian News of Los Angeles from 1987 to 1995. She
was a collective member of Califia Community, a feminist education retreat. She
creates humor as a hedge against the heterosexist phallocentric patriarchy and totickle the Lesbians.
Marjorie Greenhut: OUT AGAIN: Here I am a 67+ lesbian, coming out once
again! This time it is as an Artist. I am mostly self- taught. Photography has been
my main gig; but I also do watercolor and various forms of sculpture. I say, I am
“coming out” because for the first time I want to claim the title of Artist overother identities. Through the years, among other titles, I have claimed mother,wife, Lesbian partner, marriage and family therapist, tennis player, landowner andworkshop leader. My partner and I own and live at Artsprings, a tranquil piece ofland we have established as a retreat for women artists and writers. The year 2008,
is to be the year, I claim my creative life to the fullest. I have semi-retired with thisas my goal. My photographs have been exhibited off and on and I have shown
some of my other artwork in group and solo shows, but never with the feelingthat I was truly worthy to do so. I now believe I can claim the ARTIST within andexpress her without. To contact Artsprings, you can email Marj at m.greenhut@att.
net or phone Sierra or Marj at 503-985-9549. We are open to work exchanges, as
we have 12 beautiful, wooded acres that always need more attention.
Morgan Gwenwald has been documenting the women’s/lgbtq community formost of her life, compiling thousands of images of events, actions and people,
along with a pioneering portfolio of lesbian erotic imagery.   Recently she picked
up a Diana camera and returned to her roots of fine art photography, finding joy
in those deep and complex creative experiences.  These images were all created withthat $2 plastic wonder of uncontrolled photography.

summer 2008

115

Virginia Harris: For many years my creative life was separate from my “real”
life.  I majored in chemistry in college and went on to get a master’s degree.  For12 or 13 years I worked in nuclear chemistry research and then on a dare changed
careers to personnel (now called human resources).  Chemistry and personnel werebattle grounds that afforded little to no recognition for a job well done. I longed
for passion and definition in my life.  I found them in creativity – photography,
writing and finally quilting and fabric art. Through art quilting I pushed away thesubstitutions I have lived by and has given me the recognition I never got in the“real world.”  One of my pieces was chosen for the permanent collection at theRenwick Gallery, part of the Smithsonian Museum of American Art.  In 2004 I
received a Sister of Fire Award from the Women of Color Resource Center.  Let’shear it for passion!
Harvest: I had the good fortune to recently have my drawing I made at OWL
Farm in the 70s be on the front cover of Shewolf ’s Directory of Wimmin’s Lands
and also in Maize. I had not had anything published before that. I am working on
recording herstories of Lesbians on land.
jody jewdyke: Joyful Jewish Dyke Separatist, born in 1970. Am passionate
about celebrating, encouraging and sustaining our amazing Lesbian connections,communities and cultures.   Thrilled to be once again exploring and welcomed into
the wonderful Landdyke World where everything is possible!  Joy and appreciation
to us all. Email:  jdwildnfree@gmail.com
Verlena L. Johnson: I earned a Master’s Degree in Afro-American Studies (ArtHistory, 1996) from the University of Wisconsin Madison and a Masters of Fine
Arts Degree from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (Sculpture, 2001). Overthe past 15 years, I have sought to express my personal thoughts and feelings in myart, as well as explore larger societal phenomena, such as oppression, race, genderand sexual identity.   The style, subject-matter, and medium have varied, but thecommon threads that run through my work are questions about what it means tobe an African American (Biracial) lesbian woman, particularly in a society that does
not honor or value blackness, womaness or queerness.  I define myself broadly as an
artist and express myself in whichever media best lends itself to my ideas and mood.  
I have rejected many of the binary constructs that seem to permeate every aspect of
the art world, such as fine art versus craft; painter versus sculptor; artist versus art
historian. See more of my artwork at: http://www.verlenasroom.com
Nancy E. Lake: With my work I try to communicate an awareness of natural
beauties and the delicate inter-linkage between nature and humans. We should
realize that our very survival depends on slowing the degrading of our earth’s vital
forces and resources. We must recognize that we cannot conquer nature, but needto live in the best possible harmony with our planet. My pen and ink drawings and116

sinister wisdom #73 — The Art Issue

printmaking works are a means to explore, to experiment, to learn and to see thehumor of life as my ideas grow into pictures.
Jane Levin is a Jewish lesbian and an eight year survivor of ovarian cancer. Her
work has recently appeared in Coping with Cancer, Cosmopsis Quarterly, Taj Mahal
Review, Talking Stick 16 and Dust & Fire. She is the recipient of a 2006 Jerome
Foundation/Intermedia Arts Mentorship and a 2007 Howard B. Brin Jewish Arts
Endowment grant. Jane welcomes your comments at jjkiwi@gmail.com.
Sue Lenaerts, a computer professional and photographer, was the first out
Lesbian to serve on the Prince George’s County, Maryland, Human Relations
Commission. She designs and maintains websites, including www.sinisterwisdom.
org, www.faar-aegis.org and www.welfarewarriors.org
anna-marie lopez: i am a lesbian sephardi painter. i have been involved in several
shows for lesbian latinas. currently i am in the san antonio QUE QUEER Showand two of my paintings appeared in a new york columbus day exhibit of african/
caribbean/latin art curated by the “art off the main” gallery. i was also a part of the firstlatino/latina queer art show in portland. my website is www.anna-marielopez.com.
Virginia May has been actively pursuing her creative practice in a variety of
mediums since the 1970s. She has a BFA in photography from the University of theArts in Philadelphia and is currently researching the transformative power of art fora PhD at California Institute of Integral Studies. She has exhibited her work andtaught ‘creativity’ workshops in both the USA and Australia since 1982. She is aboard member of several art organizations including Northern California Women’s
Caucus for Art, and owns a gallery in Petaluma that showcases Contemporary
Aboriginal Art and Other Unique Visions. For more information see her web siteat www.virginiamay.org.
Stacey McCaig: I’m a artist with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, a disability that
greatly restricts my life. The clean spaces of Australia are wonderful places to be forme, now more than ever. I see in landscapes many of the dynamics that affect us associal beings, eg tangled lives, struggling to stay balanced, cracking under the strain
etc. I also see beautiful sensuality, lives intertwining and life flourishing.
Janell Moon is the author of ten books of poetry and spiritual nonfiction including
her forthcoming volume Riding Free in a Blue Studebaker from Main Street Press,
available from the author at janellmoon@aol.com or www.mainstreetrag.com
Nancy Nau: Born in California, Nancy has resided in San Francisco for the
past twelve years. She grew up in Los Angeles, California, where she attended
Alhambra High School.  Nancy was a National Merit Scholarship recipient duringsummer 2008

117

the first year of its program. She attended Occidental College, where she earned
her Bachelor’s degree in English Literature and Journalism. She earned a Master’sin Fine at CSULA and a Master’s in Theology at Claremont Graduate School.  
She currently works on her dissertation for her Ph.D. in Creative Writing, which
she writes in the form of a novel. Highlights of Nancy’s career include editorin-chief of her high school, college and graduate school newspapers. Her twenty
plus years of teaching include five years at the university level teaching creativeand expository writing.  She served for ten plus years in Pastoral Care and Mental
Health.    Now semi-retired, Nancy works as a web designer and teaches others
how to build websites.  As a writer, she has published many small works and has
kept a journal for 40+ years.  As an artist and a photographer, she has exhibited
throughout North America, sold paintings, graphic designs and ceramics.  In thepast five years, several of her photos and computer graphics have been publishedboth on and off the internet. Nancy has traveled extensively. As her most interesting
travel experience she spent on a kibbutz in Israel. Even though Nancy has written
all of her life, because of her busy life she has never had enough time to submit topublishers until her retirement in 2006.
Old Lesbians Organizing for Change (OLOC) is a national organizationcommitted to empowering old lesbians in their common struggle to confront
ageism within our own and the larger community. www.oloc.org.
Sudie Rakusin’s love and concern for the Earth and Her creatures influences allof her choices and permeates her work. Rakusin’s art has been widely reproduced innewspapers, magazines, and calendars and can be found in such books as The Onceand Future Goddess by Elinor Gadon, Seasons of the Witch by Patricia Monaghan,
and Wickedary, Outercourse, and Quintessence by Mary Daly. She lives outside
Hillsborough, North Carolina, on the edge of a meadow with her Great Danes,
surrounded by her gardens and a forest. View her work at www.sudierakusin.com.
Annie Soper is a humorous, working class, life-long Lesbian who has beencelebrating life on Lesbian land in northern California for thirty years. “I comefrom a long line of proud, strong, determined (read stubborn!), hardworking artists
and craftswomen.” In 1978, Annie became the first woman to be awarded the“Stanley Tools ‘Gold Hammer of Merit’ for Fine Woodworking.” This was thefirst of many awards. For information about Annie’s cutting boards contact her at
mistymountaindesigns@hotmail.com.
Linda Strega: I’m a sixty-six year old Lesbian Separatist living in Oakland, CA.
Jean Taylor: As well as being a radical lesbian feminist activist, Jean Taylor also
identifies as a working class, non-Indigenous, Celtic Australian who has just been
granted the Old Age Pension, much to her immense satisfaction.

118

sinister wisdom #73 — The Art Issue

Batya Weinbaum is the founding editor and editor in chief of Femspec, a feminist
speculative journal. She has written psychoanalytic theory about women’s liberationand socialism, work place relations, and oral history with women in Israel as well as
Jungian explorations of islands of women and Amazons, and contemporary science
fiction. She has published poetry, fiction and theory widely as well as numerous
reviews, and is working on a play now as well painting from goddess archetypes.
Melissa West: People are sometimes struck by the apparent disparity of subject
between my abstract work and my landscapes. To my mind, they are not so very
far apart. My abstract work begins with a movement: a circle, a spiral, a sweep of
the arm. I believe that certain shapes resonate with us because we recognize at somedeep and primitive level that they were made by a human hand. We recognize andeven feel that span of arm, that circle of hand and wrist. The line created by hand
speaks to us, and says ‘human’. It reaffirms that we exist, and that we are not alone
in the world. It is a powerful form of magic. Similarly, certain landscapes strike me,
and I feel compelled to paint them. The curious thing is that ‘landscape’ is also ahuman creation. The land is quite simply the land; landscape is our projection offeelings onto what we see. Again, we think magically, and own the world in which
we travel. Over time I’m finding that my landscapes and abstract paintings draw
closer together in style. Perhaps some day they will fuse. In either case, the act ofpainting is a journey and exploration, both of my inner and outer worlds. www.
mswest.com.
Jenna Weston: A long involvement with the nature-based Women’s Spirituality
movement strongly influences my work. Observing the natural world, then taking
what I find and transforming it into art is a kind of devotional practice for me. I
want my art to remind us of our origins.
Judith K. Witherow is an American Indian, raised in rural Appalachian poverty;
she writes about experiences with disability, gender, sexual orientation, race andclass. Her book of poetry, “All Things Wild” was reviewed by Lambda Book Report.
Judith is the winner of the first annual Audre Lorde Memorial Prose Contest for
Non-fiction. Awarded “Community Builder for Decades” Pacifica Radio 2007.
Website: www.jkwitherow.com
zana: i’m 61, disabled jewish / anglo / cherokee landdyke, living in arizona. i’mthrilled by the resurgence of separatism / connectionism, as i feel so strongly thatthe more we join our energies together, the farther we go into creating the peaceful,loving culture we desire.

summer 2008

119

Lesbian Art Books
Biren, Joan E. (JEB). Eye to Eye: Portraits of Lesbians: Photographs by JEB. GladHag Books, 1979.
Biren, Joan E. (JEB). Making a Way: Lesbians Out Front: Photographs by JEB.
Glad Hag Books, 1987.
Boffin, Tessa and Jean Fraser (editors). Stolen Glances: Lesbians Take Photographs.
Pandora Press, 1991.
Common Lives / Lesbian Lives: A Lesbian Quarterly # 12. Special Lesbian Photo
Issue. 1984.
Corinne, Tee A.  Intimacies: Photos by Tee A. Corinne. Last Gasp, 2001.
Hammond, Harmony. Lesbian Art in America: A Contemporary History. Rizzoli
International Publications, 2000.
Sinister Wisdom #64. Music, Art and Drama. 2005.
Smyth, Cherry. Damn Fine Art by New Lesbian Artists. Cassell, 1996.

120

sinister wisdom #73 — The Art Issue

Books Received
DasGupta, Sayantani and Marsha Hurst (editors). Stories of Illness and Healing:
Women Write Their Bodies. Kent State University Press, 2007.
Fowler, Virginia C. Conversations with Nikki Giovanni. University Press of Mississippi, 1992.
Calyx: A Journal of Art and Literature by Women. Volume 24, Number 1. Calyx,
Inc. (Summer 2007)
Canadian Woman Studies / les cahiers de la femme: Women Writing 3 Journeys.
Volume 26, Number 1. York University. (Winter/Spring 2007).
Feminist Studies: Women’s Resistance in Global Perspective. Volume 33, Number 1.
Feminist Studies, Inc. (Spring 2007)
Feminist Studies: Feminism and the Mass Media. Volume 33, Number 2. Feminist
Studies, Inc. (Summer 2007)

Artwork by Harvest

summer 2008

121



FEMSPEC
aninterdisciplinaryjournalcommittedtochallenging
genderthroughspeculativeart,fiction,poetry,andcriticism

RecentlyandForthcominginFEMSPECGinaWisker,“NewBlood”(Fiction)
LouiseMoore,“JoanofArc”(Poetry)
PatOrtman,“Don’tTreadonMe”(Art)
LindaHollandToll,“WhattoDoWhenYouareStuckatToxicU”
R.S.Fullerton,“Not‘OfWomanBorn’:FairyTaleMothersforPostmodernLiteraryChildren”
EricDrown,“BusinessGirlsandBesetMeninPulpScienceFiction”
D.B.Shaw,“SexandtheSingleStarshipCaptain:CompulsoryHeterosexualityandSTVoyager”
MarleenBarr,“Superfeminist,Or,AHanukahCarol”(Fiction)
CandiCruz,“TheGoddessRag”&“AvatarBlues”(Poetry)
ErinSmith,“WomenWritingPulp”
MarionEpstein,“FeministSpeculativeArt”(Art)

AdvisoryBoardContributingEditors

SuzyMcKeeCharnas
FlorenceHowe
JoannaRuss
PamelaSargent

PaulaGunnAllen
MarleenS.BarrSamuelR.DelanyGloriaOrensteinDarkoSuvin

Submissions*and
Subscriptionsto:
FEMSPEC
c/oBatyaWeinbaum,editor
1610RydalmountRoad
ClevelandHeights,OH44118
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Subscribeonlineatwww.femspec.org/subscriptions.html
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Individuals$40(2issues).
Institutions$95(2issues)
[Internationalsubscribers,pleaseadd$10]
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contactinformation,coverletterwithcontactinformation,anddisk122

sinister wisdom #73 — The Art Issue

Women’s Review
of BooksE S S AY

PHOTOGRAPHY

THE DOUBLE VISION
OF KAREN DAVISThe Solitude of Self: Thinking about Elizabeth Cady Stanton
By Vivian Gornick
New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005, 133 pp., $17.00, hardcover

Reviewed by Linda Gordon

O

ccasionally a marvelous writer turns her
attention
to a andsubject
Above: First and Last Pictureof My Mother
Me. who suits her
perfectly. This is the case with Vivian
Left: Karen Davis, self-portrait.
Gornick’s exquisite meditation on the
In alternating issues, Women's Review will feature the art of a photographer and a cartoonist. This
month we’re showing photographs by Karen Davis, with commentary by Ellen Feldman.

The duality of Karen Davis’s gaze is brought together in her images.
Ever the realist, Davis’s work is grounded in the documentary
tradition; she is a restless explorer of far-reaching subjects. Along withthe direct gaze of the realist, we have the vision of one who soaks up
emotional depths and seeks out layers of irony.
The portfolio reproduced here focuses on intimate family portraits.
In the diptych “First and Last Picture of My Mother and Me,”combinations of youth and age proliferate. The young mother and daughter arepreserved in an image cracked and worn with age. Cut to: cracked hands of theaging mother and daughter—a metonymic shorthand for lives lived—
cushioned in folds of cloth soft as baby’s skin. One can’t miss the irony—and
poignancy—of juxtaposing these images of intergenerational touching, one oflife ahead, the other of life behind.

Pulp and CircumstanceFinding Afghanistan

A Passion for Equality

nineteenth-century feminist Elizabeth
Cady Stanton. Gornick almost seems to beremembering a friend, a soulmate, or even a lover.
She has given us not only an appreciation of
Stanton’s passion for justice but also the story of her
In “The McCann Family,”own
Davis’sword-imagepiece
on her to
deeppowerfulintellectualand politicalattraction
childhood, she arranges dolls that
her sister
Cheryllong
ago inStanton,which
is so playedstrong withthat itvergesonathefamily portrait. In photographerotic.
and text,
the child-dolls
seem withto beelectricity.
the main
The book
virtually sparks
players, but the subject that gradually
emergesperhapsnot asunnaturally,
Stanton
was,ininboth,my view
as wellin Gornick’s,
is the parents’ dominating presence.
Davis, likeher sister,ofhasa stand-in
the leading
intellectual
thecreatednineteenth-century
family through which the painful
truths ofthe family
dynamics
expressed.
women’srightsmovement
and aaredrasticallyunderWhen you scratch the surfaceof KarenDavis’
photographs,
layersrecognizedpolitical
thinker.
This elegant
little ofbookmeaning are exposed. They teaseloose
memory, the passage
time,isand(only 130 small-dimension
pages),ofwhich
not ahidden associations.
biography but rather a highly subjective rumina— Ellen Feldman
tion, reveals as much about Stanton’s
thought asanything yet published.
Ellen Feldman is a photographer andGornick
writer witha Ph.D.thein “passion
cinema studies
from Newthat
identifies
for equality”
York University. She is principal course
developer
at Stanton
Avid Technology,
Inc. how Stanton’s
she shareswithand shows

The McCann Family

20 Women’s Review of Books Vol. 23, No. 1, January/February 2006

passion produced her radical democratic thought,
which evolved throughout a sixty-year career that
The McCann
Familylastedfrom the1840s until her death in 1902.
When we thought
were small,my younger
CherylStanton’s
prefiguredthat ofsister
contemporary
had a set For
of fourmechanicaldolls.
called infeminists.
example,like Our
BodiesShe
Ourselvesthem
the McCann
Therethewasa boy experts
doll,
the
1970s,
StantonFamily.
challenged
medicalgirlherdoll,maninsisted
and woman
doll.
They
were
a of
of
daya andthat shedidso notoutthinly disguised
versionof of
thescientific
Davis family.
feminine
instinctbut out
reason.
Cheryl was“Tom
McCann,”theof boydoll,six
Gornick
tells ananecdote
about one
Stanton’s
because Iwho
think
she
liked
thea ideaof being theThechildren,
was
born
with
bent collarbone.
spunky andadventurous
I washand“MaryAnn
doctor’s
bandageturned child.
the baby’s
blue
from
McCann,”the girlStantondoll. invented
Cheryl had
Motherthat
lackof circulation.
a bandage
McCann
tell
Tom,
“Mary
Ann
is
wonderful,”andlikewent across the baby’s shoulders and back“Why can’t you
be likeMaryAnn?”
suspenders,which
didyourthe sister,job. The
doctorsaid(If I had owned the dolls,
McCannwould becondescendinglythat aTommother’s instinct
hadthe talented
starthanand aMothertelltoeveryproved
betterman’swould
reason,which
one, “MaryAnn “Thereis average.”)
Stantonreplied,was no instinct about it. I
firsthard
Tom thinking
could standwithout
didAt
some
beforeI sawhelp.
howLater
I could
he losthis balance
the time.
Cherylimpeding
diaggeta pressure
on theallshoulder
without
nosed
Tom withas polio.
She After
fitted this,him Stantonwiththecirculation
you did.”
crutches andacidly,
bracesshe
just“trusted
like hers.
(Cherylwasnorrecollected
neithermenborn withspina bifida.)
thoughttoMotherbooks
absolutely...
but Tom
continued
use myMcCann disliked
havinga isdisabled
child. aHe‘mother’s
instinct’ if‘reason’too dignified
term
wasa chipper
kid but
he always felt bad about
toapply
to woman’s
thoughts.”
Mother’s
attitude.
Father usuallysided with toThis kindof thinking
was fundamental
Mother. “Listen
your Mother.”day ofStanton’s
feministto
politics.
To her, theOne
rhetoric
Father McCann’sleg, which
had been auniquenessloose, fell
genderdifference
and women’soff. Cheryl taped
thein
legpoliticalback onpowerlessness.
as a prosthesis.She
imprisoned
women
Tom felt that after
he becamean amputee,
Fatheremphasized
insteadwomen’sfundamental
was a lot more
aboutWith
his son.
humanity
and understanding
similarity to men.
stunning
chutzpah, Stanton distributed leaflets attacking
unequal, oppressive marriage laws and promoting

divorce—at a wedding. She refused to condemn
Free Love. She opposed tight corseting andadvocated fresh air for women and children. Yet she
was a movement activist, not an isolated
intellectual: she understood that activists need attimes to choose their battles. When a few feminists
rejected the long skirts of the day, which collected
dirt and hobbled them for the sake of modesty, andinstead adopted a costume made by Amelia
Bloomer—a shorter skirt over harem pants tight at
the ankles—they were subjected to relentless abuse.
After three years of it, Stanton advocated giving up
the campaign. “We put the dress on for greater
freedom, but what is physical freedom comparedwith mental bondage?”Gornick titled her book after a famous lecture
Stanton gave late in her life, “The Solitudeof Self.” It is an existential declaration ofhuman freedom and responsibility and a rejectionof all kinds of deterministic thinking, whether
religious or biological. Thus Gornick offers afundamentally romantic take on Stanton.
Ultimately the individual stands alone in her
suffering and her moral obligation to speak thetruth—personal truth, apprehended subjectively,
not socially constructed. Gornick emphasizes
Stanton’s abstract radical individualism over her
strategic thinking. (She does not explore the tension
between Stanton’s passions for equality and for
freedom, or Stanton’s willingness to settle for afranchise for educated women only.) Stanton’sprophetic stance emerged more strongly as she
aged, quite in contrast to the pattern, often assumed
to be universal, of becoming more patient andgradualist with age. In her youth she had been
infuriated by the view of several abolitionist leadersthat women’s worst problem was other women’s
acquiescence in their own subordination. But at theend of her life, she herself articulated that very
thought. She became increasingly isolated
politically, as the women’s rights movement grew
more conservative, more exclusively focused on
suffrage, and more engaged in mainstream politics.
The problem with this individualist existential
position is the problem of the Marxist concept offalse consciousness, which assumes that anyone
who stubbornly refuses to accept the feminist
viewpoint has been either fooled or blinded byideology, unable to identify her own self-interest.
Stanton did not investigate the possibility thatconservative women had material interests in, andmight even benefit from, the existing gendersystem.

published for soldiers during World War II. The new paperbacks cost as little asa quarter and were readily available in drugstores and newsstands all over
America. While many of the lesbian pulps were quick knock-offs intended to

A Bedtantalizeof Red andFlowers:
In Search of My Afghanistan
intrigue male readers, the earliest books, in particular, wereintelligent and thoughtful,
writtenBy Nelofer
Pazirato illuminate rather than sensationalize.
Two of my favorites from the era, Women’s Barracks (1950) and The Girls in
NewFree
Press,
2005, 408
pp., $15.00, in
paperback
3-BYork:(1959),
bothof which
are highlighted
Lesbian Pulp Fiction, exuberantly
served up a smorgasbord of new options for women, as the characters leave
home and explore work, careers, living arrangements, and an impressive rangeof both heterosexual and lesbian relationships. While their covers were
designedReviewed
to appeal toby
prurient
interest,
I suspect that sales of these two books,
JasminDarznik
to both women and men, were also driven by the sheer thrill of discovering
new options and seeing them validated in print. Both books were ultimately
empowering: even a reader who made the most traditional of marriages could
come away feeling she’d had a choice and had made the best one for herself.
And lesbian readers? All in all, the lesbians in these books come out prettyn 1978, five-year-old Nelofer Pazira waswell—better, perhaps, than their heterosexual counterparts. When you weighmarched to a prison in Kabul to visit her
their lives, hopes, and romantic successes against the straight women’s, a little
father, a prominent physician and one ofcloseting and some familial or work disapproval don’t seem so bad compared
thousands to be imprisoned by the Communist
to out-of-wedlock pregnancy, date rape, being jilted by married men, or, ingovernment that year. Flustered and confused,
Women’s Barracks, the painfully frequent deaths of boyfriends, fiancés, andshe reached him only to be greeted with a stern
shiny new husbands in the war.
rebuke. “You mustn’t cry,” her father warned her
Tereska Torres based her World War II novel Women’s Barracks—publishedfrom behind the bars of his dank cell.
under the tag line, “The Frank Autobiography of a French Girl Soldier”—on her
Organizing her family’s escape from Afghanistan
years in the London-based Women’s Division of the Free French Army. The
ten years later, Pazira still finds herself bound bybook sold two million copies in the US between 1950 and 1955, and another two
the same injunction. “Boys my age are sent to themillion in translation and in later American editions. It continued to sell infront line and return dead and injured. Girls carry
reprint editions. By way of comparison, Khaled Hosseini’s contemporary bestthe burden of an entire household.” It is part of theseller, The Kite Runner, sold about as many copies as Women’s Barracks—yet inparticular burden of the Afghani woman in exile,
1955, the population of the US was only 55 to sixty percent of what it is today.
Pazira suggests, to make a final reckoning of her
Neither book has single-handedly changed the world—but both have opened
country’s fate.
Boys my age are sent
doors in a lot of people’s minds.
By Carol Seajay
A Bed of Red Flowers is a memoir of young
Stanton was ... the leading
to the front line and return
woman’s life in Afghanistan during the seventies
alerie Taylor’s The Girls in 3-B is a veritable guide to moving to a big
and eighties, as well as Pazira’s attempt, years laterdead
injured.
intellectual of thecity and setting up a life there. 3-B
was soandpopularthat its themes werein exile, to understand her country’s bloody
echoed in a comic strip, “The Girls in Apartment 3-G,” that ran in dailyarly in 1966, when we were both fifteen, my girlfriend and I found a
Girls carry the burden of an
disintegration. Pazira was born to a privileged
nineteenth-century women’s
newspapers for forty years, although without the book’s lesbian content.
lesbian pulp paperback, We, Too, Must Love, on the bookshelf offamily that suffered steady dispossession in war-torn
entirehousehold.
Reading—or rereading—these tales is
all the richer
when one remembers theanother Senior Girl Scout. We “borrowed” it, devoured it, andrights movement and a
Afghanistan, fled to Pakistan in 1989, and ultimately
realities of the times when they were first published: classified ads werereturned it before its absence would be noticed. I was thrilled byfound sanctuary in the West. Now a journalist based
drastically under-recognized
segregated into “Help Wanted/Male” and “Help Wanted/Female.” Women’s
what I read: that we could support ourselves and make our lives
in Canada, Pazira starred in the widely acclaimed
professional career options were pretty much limited to teacher, librarian, or
together, and that there were many other women like us. My sweetie,
For many years her father and mother quarrel
2000 film Kandahar. Released just months before
political thinker.
nurse, and working class women didn’t fare so well either. Women could be (andon the other hand, was terrified by what she found in the same pages.
over whether to leave the country. Then in 1989, the9/11, the film was inspired by Pazira’s life. It tells thewere) fired for wearing pants to work, and the idea of equal pay for equal work
But she was the one who found the courage to go to the newsstand down thethreat of her brother’s conscription finally sends thestory of an Afghani woman’s return to Afghanistan
wasn’t yet a gleam in anyone’s eye. Sexual relationships between women were
block from her Catholic girls’ school and special order every book referenced infamily into exile. The passages describing theduring the Taliban’s rule. Less an intimate
generally considered immoral, criminal, or a symptom of underlying mental
We, Too, Must Love that wasn’t yet out of print, and then every additional bookPazira’s flight to Pakistan make up some of therumination than a journalistic history of her country,
ornick judiciously complicates her radicalreferenced in those. (Blessings on the newsstand boys who
illness. They could land a woman in jail or a psychiatric institution, with or
sold us the books
mostharrowing
parts
of
the
book. Exile forces
A
Bed
of
Red
Flowersisdrivenbytheauthor’s
passionindividualist interpretation by examiningwith a minimum of grief.)
without electric shock treatments. The pulps remind us of how much courage it
Nelofer and her family to reconsider theirnarrate the history of a country that, she suggests,
Stanton’s connectedness to her feminist Katherine V. Forrest’s anthology, Lesbian Pulp Fiction:toThetook in the fifties and prefeminist sixties to pursue a life with women, and how
Sexually Intrepid
understanding of the class and religious tensions
and the West still do not know.
comrades and personal friends—usually the sameWorld of Lesbian Paperback Novels 1950–1965, brought backAmerica
utterly thrilling it could be to discover these secret, underground worlds. They
these memories andunderlying the war. For their journey across the
Pazira’s mother and father belonged to an
people—and the pleasure she took in sisterhood.more as I read through the selection of excerpts from twenty-two
remind us, too, of how subversive women’s dreams and lesbian lives were in theclassics fromdesert to Pakistan, this modern Afghani family
elite that embraced many aspects of a
Gornick knows about this because of her ownthe heyday of the pulp novel. Forrest cheerfully prefacesurbanized
face of the postwar wave of conformity that swept America in the fifties.
each excerpt with theposes as tribe of devout provincials. For the first
Western lifestyle in the late sixties and seventies.
feminist illumination, that “moment of joy, when aoriginal publication’s lurid cover and sensational jacket
Many of the pulps that followed Women’s Barracks and 3-B focused
copy, providing antime in her life Nelofer dons a burqa, the traditional
Her father was a respected physician in Kabul andsufficiently large number of people are galvanizedentertaining introduction to these books for the generations
who started
specifically on lesbian experience: Vin Packer (Marijane Meaker)’s Spring Fire
Muslim cover of Afghani women. Back in Kabul
her mother a teacher of Persian literature. Nelofer
by a social explanation of how their lives havereading after the pulps disappeared, as well as for those who
never understood(reprinted 2004 by Cleis Press) is the tale of a motherless, tomboyish college girlshe only occasionally saw women in burqas, andherself enjoyed a modern education, one of only
taken shape and are gathered together... for thewhat all the fuss was about.
“done wrong” by an older sorority sister. Ann Bannon’s beloved Beebo Brinker
neither she nor any of the women of her family
five percent of Afghani women with the same
pleasure of elaborating the insight.” She illustrates The best reason to read the old pulps is that they’re fun.
But there are otherseries (all currently in print from Cleis) follows the adventures of a group ofwore them in their daily lives.
privilege. The year after her father was first imprisStanton’s experience with excerpts from herreasons: readers in their twenties and thirties will recognize
their own lives andgirls as they make their way to Greenwich Village.
Thus disguised, Nelofer and her family
oned, in 1979, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan,correspondence, much fuller in those days withoutdreams in the “differently gendered” Beebo Brinker, heroineof Ann Bannon’s
Other pulps have extensive publishing histories as well; several were among
encounter a people and a culture they barely
launching a brutal, decades-long war with
telephones and with rapid postal service than itmuch loved and frequently reprinted tales. Those who appreciate
edgy episodes
the top five bestsellers the year they were published. Kensington Press recently
recognize. They spend a few nights in the home ofAmerican-backed guerillas, the mujahidin. With themight be now. I wish, however, that Gornick hadcan revel in the day when a single kiss could make a woman
both an outcast andreprinted all six of Paula Christian’s novels, which were republished previously
some poor villagers, where Nelofer prefers to go
war, the Pazira family’s privileged life was steadily
made more of Stanton’s lifelong partnership withan outlaw. And historians will note the guidebook-like qualities
of many of thein the late seventies and early eighties in spiffy leatherette-covered collector’s
hungry rather than share food that has passed
dismantled.
Susan B. Anthony—one of the great personal/books and the way they disseminated new ideas throughout
the culture.
editions. Naiad Press republished Ann Bannon’s five Beebo Brinker novels andthrough so many unwashed hands. It is at thisAs a teenager, Nelofer identifies strongly with thepolitical partnerships in history. (I would place it in An estimated 2,000 lesbian-themed novels were publishedas part of thethree of Valerie Taylor’s novels in mass-market priced Volute Press editions inpoint that Nelofer realizes that, with her limited
whom she idolizes as a nationalist force
the same category as that of Franklin and Eleanorgreat pulp paperback boom inspired by the success ofmujahidin,
the “pocket books”
the early eighties.
experience, she is unqualified to judge the village
resisting the Soviet invaders. After school she andRoosevelt.) The Stanton/Anthony partnership was
women whose lives differ so much from hers.
her friends regularly line up to throw rocks at thethe more powerful because of their differences: theNaseema, the family’s guide and host, is one ofSoviet tanks, and at one point she even acquires a
strategic, practical, spinster Anthony and the18 Women’s Review of Books Vol. 23,
No. 1, January/February 2006
many women left orphaned and widowed by the
gun and joins an underground resistance movement.
iconoclastic, theoretical, eloquent Stanton,

I

“

”

G

E

V

“

”

war. Barely older than Nelofer, she has made it her
life’s purpose to avenge her parents’ murder by
Russian soldiers. She regularly crosses the desert ina burqa and delivers fleeing families across theborder to the Pakistani city of Peshawar.
Early in her stay in Pakistan, Nelofer cracks open
a window to take a peek at the neighborhood. The
sound of gunshots causes her to retreat in terror.
Women, her hosts explain to her, are not allowed to
be seen without “proper cover,” even from thewindows of their homes. It is a jarring introduction
to freedom in the new country, and to her new
identity as a Muslim woman.
Here and in many passages, Pazira is careful tosuggest that the problems of Afghani women
cannot be attributed merely to the Taliban. At
one point, she meets an Afghani woman in a
refugee camp who begs to be paid with a burqa
for her appearance in Kandahar. Outside
Afghanistan, burqas have become extremely
hard to come by, and the young woman issure that it is just the accessory she needs tocreate erotic allure on her wedding night.
Pazira refuses, but is left unsettled by theexchange and its implications for the futureof women in Afghanistan.
The making of the film Kandahar makes up
a lengthy and interesting section of thememoir. Parts of the movie were shot in a
refugee camp on the Iran-Pakistan border. The Iranian director Mohsen
Makhmalbaf, known for his brilliant
and canny realism, chose the actors from thepoor refugee families. At every turn, the crew meetsthe reluctance of fathers and husbands to allow theirwomen to be “shown.” Actresses are hired only to disappear the next day, snatched back to their homes byenraged fathers. Pazira becomes the object of scrutiny
and suspicion as again and again, she is enjoined toleave the film crew, drape herself in a burqa, and settle down to be a proper Muslim woman.
Pazira frequently evades private details about
her life, so the memoir, though often highly
dramatic, lacks the intimate episodes andreflections that would have made it a true personal
history. Her quest to find her friend Dyana is meant
to drive the book’s second half, but Pazira’s
description of the friendship suffers from herevasiveness. Dyana finally is no more than ashadow-self for Pazira, a way of keeping alive her
connection to her lost country.

Pazira concentrates the final section of thebook on a series of interviews she conductedwith former Soviet soldiers in January 2004.
Islam, the Taliban, and even the American-led war
and occupation of Afghanistan, are given scanttreatment as she focuses on what she believes is thetrue point of departure for modern Afghan history:
the Soviet invasion of 1979. As she forces our gazefrom both her life and present-day Afghanistan, herpassion and conviction are unbridled. For all thegaps and evasions of her telling, hers is aremarkable journey. From a Kabul prison cell as agirl of five, Nelofer Pazira’s journey ends at Lenin’s
tomb; she has become a woman, a journalist, and an
exile for whom the search for Afghanistan is her
life’s calling.
Jasmin Darznik is a lawyer and doctoral candidate at
Princeton University. She is writing a dissertation on
narratives of Middle Eastern women in exile.

housewife and mother, able to write only because

Women’s Review of Books

3

28 Women’s Review of Books Vol. 23, No. 1, January/February 2006

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