AccessMyLibrary provides FREE access to over 30 million articles from top publications available through your library.

Where the Poetry Is the Political. (Books).(Identity Poetics: Race, Class, and the Lesbian-Feminist Roots of Queer Theory)(Book Review)

The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide

| July 01, 2003 | Boutilier, Nancy | COPYRIGHT 2003 Gay & Lesbian Review, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)Copyright

Identity Poetics: Race, Class, and the Lesbian-Feminist Roots of Queer Theory

by Linda Garber

Columbia University Press

262 pages, $49.95 ($18.50 paper)

HAS A RETRO WAVE of lesbian feminism washed over the country? Have we arrived in the post-queer era? What is it about lesbian feminist writings that has endured? The answers, I think, can be found in the poetry of the age, and in Linda Garber's book Identity Poetics: Race, Class, and the Lesbian-Feminist Roots of Queer Theory. Garber has written a smart, readable, wide-ranging examination of five poets whose writings helped to define early lesbian feminist theory and who, according to Garber's account, deserve some credit for their contributions to the current body of queer theory. While Identity Poetics certainly engages in some academic turf debates, what I like most about the book is how much it focuses on the poets and their work.

Garber, who teaches English and women's studies at Santa Clara University, dedicates a full chapter to each of five poets: Judy Grahn, Pat Parker, Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich, and Gloria Anzaldua. In addition to addressing formal aspects of their poetry, Garber complements her close readings with well-documented historical background from interviews and other commentary. Whether writing about Parker's connections to the Black Arts writers of the 1960's or Anzaldua's use of pre-colonial and traditional Chicano imagery, Garber presents each poet's work with respect to its place in various literary and political movements. She also provides information about performance, publication, and critical reception of the work. The writing moves smoothly between the dense formulations of postmodernism and the easy flow of personal narrative.

What Garber sees in the poetry is "a sort of post-modern identity politics" that she calls "identity poetics." Though the definition of "identity poetics" is a little elusive, Garber knows it when she sees it, and she sees it most clearly in the poetry of working-class lesbians and lesbians of color. Central to their writing, particularly as it revolves around lesbian subjectivity, are issues of silence and voice, race and racism, class, gender, sex, and cultural mythologies. Identity poetics reveal both activist politics and notions of multiple identities. Garber finds these qualities in Parker's poetry, which on one page critiques the feminist movement shouting "SISTER! your foot is smaller,/ but it's still on my neck," and on the facing page questions the black power movement in a poem titled "Brother," which ends: "i'm no genius,/ but i do know! that system/ you hit me with/ is called/ a fist."

Related articles from newspapers, magazines, journals, and more
Figuring subjectivity in 'Piers Plowman C' and 'The Parson's Tale' and...
Magazine article from: Style Pigg, Daniel F. September 22, 1997 700+ words
For some time, scholars and readers of Chaucer have pondered his knowledge about one of the major poets of his day: William Langland. Readers may typically find statements in scholarly discourse such as "We can now scarcely avoid considering the probability of Chaucer's having actually seen a copy
A Genealogy of Queer Theory.
Magazine article from: NWSA Journal McRuer, Robert June 22, 2002 700+ words
...the field that has come to be called queer theory, I title my first-day handout (which...decades) "The Proliferating Origins of Queer Theory." The problem, I explain to students...a pure and singular starting point. Queer theory, by contrast, proffers the impure...
Feminism Meets Queer Theory.
Magazine article from: NWSA Journal Plymie, Darcy June 22, 1998 700+ words
Feminism Meets Queer Theory edited by Elizabeth Weed and Naomi...fields of lesbian and gay studies and queer theory seem to have challenged whether feminism...studies, lesbian and gay studies, and queer theory, it is no surprise to find a number...
Childlike: queer theory and its children.(Making American Boys: Boyology and...
Magazine article from: Criticism Cobb, Michael January 1, 2005 700+ words
...18.95 paper. No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive, by Lee Edelman...been crucial in the formation of "queer theory." It would be a mistake, indeed, to call the current moment "queer theory's turn to the child." Nevertheless...
Relating to Queer Theory: Rereading Sexual Self-Definition with Irigaray,...
Magazine article from: The Modern Language Review Hughes, Alex October 1, 2002 700+ words
Relating to Queer Theory: Rereading Sexual Self-Definition...Butler, the doyenne of contemporary queer theory, expresses disquiet at the territorializing...practices of exclusion. In Relating to Queer Theory, a text in which Butler's voice...
Curator stirs campuses: Comments on queer theory raise larger issues with...
News wire article from: Kansas City Star (Kansas City, MO) October 14, 2006 700+ words
...Wasinger says he doesn't know what queer theory is. He also isn't sure how many University...questioned the academic merit of teaching queer theory, which developed as an offshoot of...sponsoring courses and programs entitled 'Queer Theory' (and 'Pick the Queer')," Wasinger...
Wishing for political dominance: representations of history and community in...
Magazine article from: Australian Literary Studies Mitchell, Peter October 1, 2003 700+ words
...contemporary Australia is Annamarie Jagose's Queer Theory (1996). The popularity and authority...Within Australia, the publication of Queer Theory has contributed and contributes to these...identity politics. The narrative of Queer Theory revolves around the binary node of ...
Who is the subject? Queer theory meets oral history.(Essay)
Magazine article from: Journal of the History of Sexuality Boyd, Nan Alamilla May 1, 2008 700+ words
...their projects. Discourse analysis and queer theory's interrogation of subjectivity raise...methodology, particularly in relation to queer theory. Beyond the discursive clash between queer theory and oral history, however, I hope to...
Critics slam UM curator over remark: Wasinger defends ?queer theory' comment.
Newspaper article from: Columbia Daily Tribune (Columbia, MO) October 11, 2006 700+ words
...a critical comment about teaching "queer theory" courses. The comment came during...the academic merit of courses such as Queer Theory'," Wasinger wrote. Wasinger's...sponsoring courses and programs "entitled Queer Theory and Pick the Queer." "On their face...
Did the Supreme Court come out in Bush v. Gore? Queer theory on the performance...
Magazine article from: differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies Burgess, Susan March 22, 2005 700+ words
...opinion in Bush v. Gore. Academic queer theory suggests that both the judicial and...of shame. But why a queer critique? Queer theory does more than simply unveil the messiness...impossible. Thus, by comparing academic queer theory with Holly Hughes's outrageous queer...
For more facts and information, see all results

Source: HighBeam Research, Where the Poetry Is the Political. (Books).(Identity Poetics: Race,...

©2009 Gale, a part of Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.
About us | FAQs | Contact us | Privacy policy | Terms and conditions
Other Gale sites: Encyclopedia.com | HighBeam Research | Acquire Content | Books & Authors | Goliath | MovieRetriever | Smart QandA