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Minnie Bruce Pratt: “You can say to yourself that you understand time, death, partings. But the body only wants the person back. The body is like a faithful dog waiting at the closed door that the beloved person has walked through. The body just waits and waits and howls for the person to come back. You can’t tell the body with words that the person will never come back. The body doesn’t believe it. My body still doesn’t believe that Leslie will never come back to me. There’s no letting go with the body. What I’ve learned, now, at the end of these poems, is only time and sometimes poetry helps the body carry the grief.”
Judith Schalansky: “Men are not mentioned by name in the surviving poetry of Sappho, whereas many women are: Abanthis, Agallis, Anagora, Anactoria, Archeanassa, Arignota, Atthis, Cleïs, Cleanthis, Dica, Doricha, Eirana, Euneica, Gongyla, Gorgo, Gyrinna, Megara, Mica, Mnasis, Mnasidica, Pleistodica, Telesippa. It is they whom Sappho sings about, with tender devotion or flaming desire, with burning jealousy or icy contempt.”
Lesbian poets and artists, need a new muse? Here’s Melissa Carper singing her song “I’m Musing You.”
Judith Schalansky: “Men are not mentioned by name in the surviving poetry of Sappho, whereas many women are: Abanthis, Agallis, Anagora, Anactoria, Archeanassa, Arignota, Atthis, Cleïs, Cleanthis, Dica, Doricha, Eirana, Euneica, Gongyla, Gorgo, Gyrinna, Megara, Mica, Mnasis, Mnasidica, Pleistodica, Telesippa. It is they whom Sappho sings about, with tender devotion or flaming desire, with burning jealousy or icy contempt.”
Gertrude Stein: “You will write if you will write without thinking of the result in terms of a result, but think of the writing in terms of discovery, which is to say that creation must take place between the pen and the paper, not before in a thought or afterwards in a recasting...It will come if it is there and if you will let it come.”
Josephine Jacobsen: “Poetry is like walking along a little, tiny, narrow ridge up on a precipice. You never know the next step, whether there’s going to be a plunge. I think poetry is dangerous. There’s nothing mild and predictable about poetry.”
Elaine Seiler: “Mother energy is universal. It is the large expression of the sacred feminine that comes from spirit. It is embodied in all our biological mothers, but it’s not limited or confined to them. It expands beyond them to encompass anyone that is loving, nurturing, soft, accepting, receptive, embracing, and creative.”
Lesbian poets and artists, need a new muse? Here’s Melissa Carper singing her song “I’m Musing You.”
