Judy Grahn: February 20, 2014

The Poetry Center presents Judy Grahn, reading from her memoir, A Simple Revolution (Aunt Lute Books, 2012) along with selected works from A Judy Grahn Reader (Aunt Lute Books, 2009), and discussing her life in writing, activism, and community building. Grahn is introduced by Poetry Center director Steve Dickison. 

Publisher
American Poetry Archives
Location
The Poetry Center, San Francisco State University
Date
2014-02-20
Event Run Time
01:19:52
Contributors
Steve Dickison
Rights

©© American Poetry Archives. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. For all other uses please email poetry@sfsu.edu.

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Judy Grahn (01:13:49)

Judy Grahn reads from A Simple Revolution and The Judy Grahn Reader, interspersing poems and prose with stories from her life as a writer, activist, and queer community builder. She begins by reading an excerpt from the first section of A Simple Revolution, which centers on her childhood in Chicago and her father's love of poetry. This leads into a story about her time in the army, her coming into her queerness, and her time at Howard University where she studied with Nathan Hare. Hare would become chair of the country's first Black Studies department at San Francisco State and was an integral force behind the 1968 Student Strike, in which Grahn participated. 

Grahn then reads poems from The Judy Grahn Reader and speaks of her friendship with Pat Parker, her role in the Bay Area's radical lesbian community of the '70s and '80s, and the development and evolution of her poetics.

She finishes by taking questions from the audience, discussing her writing process and the importance of community, among other topics. 

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