Essayists From The United States

"Meridel Le Sueur is wonderful. She is still, in my view, a consummate artist, one of the best, most important American writers."

"The writer Meridel Le Sueur was blacklisted, hounded by the FBI, her books banned; she was dismissed from job after job-teaching, waitressing because the FBI intimidated her students and employers."

"Muriel Rukeyser and somebody like Meridel Le Sueur were doubly wounded. They were wounded as women by their own political men-something like black women are-and wounded again by the literary elite, who were for the birds."

"Two exceedingly important creative and political lives."

"In the forties Diana Trilling could write words that in their sharp moral focus may remind us of some Victorian prophet: "Ours being in all spheres such a 'know-how' culture, a civilization so brilliantly skilled in turning out anything it sets its hand to and yet so appallingly ignorant of what is worth making or to what use the things it makes should be put, we cannot be surprised that our literature, too, shows a marked ascendancy of craft over conscience. Probably there has never been a time when so many people wrote so 'well' as now but to such meager purpose; when, indeed, the emptier a novel's content, the surer its technical proficiency." If the reader thinks that sounds more like a critic than a book reviewer, he is right. And as a critic, Diana Trilling has range; she is not satisfied to leave literature sitting there uninterpreted in its fullest psychological, social, and political meaning, for she perceives that "literature is no mere decoration of life but an index of the health or sickness of society." It follows that "just as dictatorship, war, and all the other hideous phenomena of our political day undoubtedly answer a profound need in the modern mass-personality, so the debasement of our literary standards reflects a loss of standard throughout our lives.""

"To be sure, the part played by television in disturbing the normal rate of national and even international development and in robbing us of the physical distance which formerly separated us from events and therefore forced us to exercise our own minds and imaginations in order to get even a first grasp on history-in-the-making, is not to be underestimated as a factor in our recent dislocation in space and time. The death of John Kennedy, however, made for a subtler and perhaps a more pervasive disturbance in our historical balance. It altered our sense of ourselves as a people; it deprived us of the promise of a future. What could more profoundly affect the motions of time?"

"It seemed to me, ruled my writing, whatever its subject: my belief that even in an unsatisfactory society the individual is best defined by his social geography."

"we may protest that women's small contribution to culture doesn't indicate a lack of capacity but merely reflects the way men have contrived things to be: we can blame women's small place in culture on culture. But this leaves unanswered the question of why it is that over so many hundreds of years women have consented to follow the male dictate and allowed men to fashion the culture according to male design. It also leaves unanswered the even more fundamental question of why it is that in every society which has ever been studied-so Margaret Mead tells us-whatever is the occupation of men has the greater prestige"

"Meridel Le Sueur's documentary novel of the depression, The Girl, is arresting as a study of female double life... Sex is thus equated with attention from the male, who is charismatic though brutal, infantile, or unreliable. Yet it is the women who make life endurable for each other, give physical affection without causing pain, share, advise, and stick by each other. (I am trying to find my strength through women-without my friends, I could not survive)...The Girl and Sula are both novels which examine what I am calling the lesbian continuum, in contrast to the shallow or sensational "lesbian scenes" in recent commercial fiction. Each shows us woman identification untarnished (till the end of Le Sueur's novel) by romanticism; each depicts the competition of heterosexual compulsion for women's attention, the diffusion and frustration of female bonding that might, in a more conscious form, reintegrate love and power."

"Meridel Le Sueur, the Minnesota writer, interviewed her grandmother, who said, "I've lived all my life trying to suppress these stories of what happened to me, and now you're going to write them." And she did"

"She was a poet. She was an activist. She was a writer. And she was a bold believer in a different world. And, you know, she was a poet. She was a writer of poetry books. But she also, you know, fought for the women’s right to vote. She was an organizer in the labor movement, big sacrificer for some of the rights that we have today and sort of—not sort of. She’s a legend, I guess, beyond our family and did a lot of—did a lot of things that helped shape this country. And to me, you know, as—to me and our generation, I think we still derive a lot of courage from the courage that she had."

"as Freud's views on the childhood source of mental disorder have permeated our culture, there has been mounted a wide campaign of mother-suspicion and mother-discreditation. From Sidney Howard's play The Silver Cord, in the mid-twenties, to Philip Roth's more recent Portnoy's Complaint, our literature has disseminated the idea that American women alternate a diet of husbands with a diet of sons."

"Perhaps Meridel Le Sueur's wisest and most comforting words to women of the world are found in a line of a poem of solidarity she composed for the North Vietnamese Women's Union: "It was the bumble bee and the butterfly who survived, not the dinosaur,""

"Feminist writer Patricia Hampl once said of Meridel: "Bedecked with Indian turquoise bracelets and rings, a string of large ominous teeth around her neck, a bright multicolored serape covering her body-this walking heap of archetypal images is not your idea of somebody's grandmother. A grandmother, no; a wise and maybe occasionally avenging ancient goddess, yes.""

"The whole temper of the world is in a much higher consciousness than I've even seen it-there's a global consciousness. I think we're on the verge of a new humanity if we don't blow it up!"

"Meridel has enjoyed being "rediscovered" by the feminist press, particularly because of her chance to work with women editors. Her male editors typically had "such a superior attitude-even in punctuation." Whereas, she contrasts, "The Feminist Press wouldn't even change a comma without asking." The format of Ripening, with its biography, commentary and scrapbook photos, "would never have been conceived in male printing," she notes. Trashing the women writers has resulted in the neglect of twenty midwest women writers-"some as good as Sandburg or Lewis"-now out of print, Meridel says unhappily. She cites as an example her friend and Wisconsin author Zona Gale, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1921 ("for a feminist story"), yet is virtually forgotten and unread today. Meridel "repudiates categories of male literature." She politely answered all questions about times and dates, but mildly remarked, "Linear thinking is patriarchal.""

"Some of the best poetry is being written by three American Indian women"

"I truly feel there is a new language coming about-look at the work of Meridel LeSueur, Sharon Doubiago, Linda Hogan, Alice Walker - it's coming from the women. Something has to be turned around. (1990)"

"Love idealizes, or at least traditionally that has been one of the differential diagnoses: love idealizes, adds, but sex is just body meeting body, sometimes with love, sometimes with affection, sometimes with neither, just for the fun or satisfaction of it."

"In a speech last year on women's liberation, I said how wonderful it was for us to be living in a period in which Dostoevski's statement that there was no such thing as an ugly woman was at last coming true. Of course I don't mean that absolutely and literally but I said it seriously in that speech because I was talking about the terrible Madison Avenue-contrived notions of sexual attractiveness that were imposed upon the girls of my generation and how dreadful it was to be made to think, as I did, that you had to conform to some impossible standard of advertising beauty in order to be in the sexual running at all. How can anyone of my generation do anything except celebrate the fact that this is no longer how things are?"

"I'd always identified myself with the people's struggles. I think I began writing more about it and having an audience for writing it. But we wrote as partisans, we call it. You're on the side and like I was marching. I don't say anything about the troubles of the manufacturers association, or any sympathy for them. I just identified with the strikers."

"The women's movement is great in the Twin Cities, I think."

"For the first time, Meridel says "I am writing what I want to write. I don't know if anyone is going to read it," she adds with the pragmatism of someone whose work was virtually banned for years. "I don't even think about it. I just love it. It's a wonderful gift to have a passion like that.""

"The independent strong woman was a bad woman, even in the radical press. Irene and I had a vision of the free new woman growing in her own pattern-a new crop, new protein, new communication, new connections, new conceptions-birthing out of terrible hunger and anger."

"The great energies, languages and nourishment of women are seized, hidden and violated by indifference and outright conspiracy in order to maintain the silence of women. It is a loss when the voices of women are muffled, lost or deliberately silenced."

"What I have found in life-it makes me very sad-is that one friend sustains me in one direction, another in another direction. What's missing are the friends who sustain one altogether."

"So your name isn't María Cristina,/but you forgot to tell me if you understood/she was just one person,/one Borinqueña within our universal identity."

"Listening to or reading about Lesbian writers and their works does not make anyone of us less fearful of taboos, crossing gender lines or trespassing male/female hierarchies. On the contrary, I have felt more acceptance of my voice, writings and Self while working in jails for youths, cultural centers in barrios, or teaching Appalachian university students. Perhaps, in the midst of this essay, we should start questioning ourselves as to whose taboos we are talking about or referring to. I, for one, can say that our taboos in academia have provoked more emotional and career harm to me than those held by what we, as academicians, call the "others"-"theirs"-the street people, the illiterate, the white trash, youths in jails."

"When we speak of gender taboos in the USA, Latin@, or Latin American culture, or taboos within any one of our cultures in general, let us not, as academicians, assume a lily white and pristine innocence because of an M.A. or Ph.D. after our names. The "P" in Ph.D. may well stand for "prejudice." Let us address the taboos that are "ours" and which are more harmful in real ways and practical ways than those of Jesse Helms. Jesse Helms can be fought openly through ballots, political campaigns, and organized movements of opposition. He is open about his taboos. But the taboos engendered in our men, in our women, as Latin@ or Latin American academicians or scholars of any Minority group do us far more harm on a daily basis as Latina Lesbian writers and academicians."

"Luzma Umpierre is a poet and scholar who has taken a particularly heroic stance on the question of the rights of gays and lesbians, and "minorities" in educational institutions."

"When one "steals" a dress code from another gender, one is crossing a line in this country and walking into the realm of irrational fears living in people's minds."

"I have also been called and labeled "crazy" for daring to break stereotypes and taboos-for questioning white women on their racism."

"I want to suggest to the readers that taboos are not something foreign to "intellectuals" reading this piece or attending the MLA. On the contrary, the taboos within academia are probably more harmful to Lesbian women than those associated with mountaineer men in Kentucky or low class white "Americans.""

"I do not wish anyone to think that I am a saint and that people project on me their insecurities and that is how I deal with life. But, unlike some of these people, I have spent countless hours in introspection, alone and in therapy. I am very happy with who I am, but that took years of pain, suicidal thoughts, tears, panic attacks, and insecurities to develop. I have dealt with many of my problems as a Lesbian, as an abused child, and as an anorexic teenager. I am, indeed, not perfect, but I am happy with who I am. And, if maintaining my happiness and the happiness I can bring to others through my voice and writings means that I will be the object of persecution, banned, ignored and left out, I am willing to pay that price."

"Being an Open Lesbian, a vocal female, a woman with "an attitude," as they say, has made and continues to make life in academia miserable for me-many times, I would say, by men within my own culture. But it is not all men; only those whose minds are engraved with the fear of the myth/illogical" castrating bitch."

"At 63, she stories her identity to be that of a Puerto Rican lesbian poet and human rights advocate. "Who am I today is a composite of many aspects; I am a Puerto Rican woman, I am also a lesbian, a woman of color, and a human rights advocate. Excluding one identity in lieu of the other does not tell the whole story. After I met the poet Audre Lorde I realized I had to embrace all this in order to have a holistic view. Audre said: "you can only empower yourself when you join all the parts of your own Self." So I had to join all the pieces of the puzzle so it could be read.""

"In 1978, she became the first Puerto Rican to receive tenure in the Spanish Department at Rutgers University. In a deep but heartfelt tone she expressed: "My life in exile took me to become the mentor and teacher of other exiled students and that was very rewarding since I had made the decision to stay in the USA to be of service to that group.""

"This book is an answer to Cherrie Moraga's valiant Loving In The War Years."

"The collection is also a question: who is Margarita? Margarita is an intoxicating drink, a flower back home in Puerto Rico, the title of a traditional "danza" that was a favorite of my mother and the name of a woman I love. Margarita is all of these and none. Margarita is my muse, Margarita is my poetry, Margarita is my imaginary lover, Margarita is my Self. And as you read these you may ask yourself: who is Julia? Julia de Burgos is our greatest woman poet in Puerto Rico, Julia is a teacher, Julia is an idol, Julia is a friend. But Julia is, most of all, Margarita. We are all Margaritas and have a Julia within. In writing about Margarita and Julia, I received a sign in the fall of 1986 that these poems were complete and ready to emerge. I met two women poets who have these names and who have had an impact in my life: Margaret Randall and Julia Álvarez."

"I don't write anything in life, be they poems or articles, out of wanting to impress people with "volume" but out of thought, perception and feeling."

"In summary, this is our collection. And to all who ruminate these pages: luz y mar."

"I had long ago found courage in Audre Lorde's Sister Outsider when she says: “I find I am constantly being encouraged to pluck out some one aspect of myself and present this as a meaningful whole, eclipsing or denying the other parts of self. But this is a destructive and fragmenting way to live. My fullest concentration of energy is available to me only when I integrate all the parts of who I am, openly, allowing power from particular sources of my living to flow back and forth freely through all my different selves, without the restrictions of externally imposed definition. Only then can I bring myself and my energies as a whole to the service of those struggles which I embrace as part of my living""

"The last piece of the tapestry revealing her complex identity was woven in place when Luzma realized her alliance with Latina and African American writers gave her an extended identity. She found kinship in women of color who had been left out of the Women and Gay and Lesbian movement. She narrates this kinship poignantly: "We realized we were on our own and started bonding together, Latina women writers like Cherrie Moraga, Jewel Gómez, black writers like Audre Lorde and Ntozake Shange, who wrote For Colored Women, we understood we had to support each other or nobody would.”"

"When I read, for the first time my collection The Margarita Poems (at rutgers university)...a young Latino male, as soon as I read my poem, "Immanence," stood up and left the room, only to go and see the Dean the next morning to ask him "How could the university have allowed an open Lesbian poem to be read within its confines?" The organizer of the conference, a remarkable white woman, had the perfect answer for the Dean: "The university is the place where one loses one's virginity and I guess that young man lost his yesterday.""

"Luzma's narrative of transforming difficult experiences in life into advocacy and activism runs as a unifying thread through her life. She belongs to a cohort of gay and lesbian activists who came to age in a more liberated sexual culture of the 70's"

"What I needed to verbalize is the fact that I am, among many other things, a Lesbian. Second, I wanted to communicate in some viable form with some One who came to represent all women to me."

"I have been a Pariah in academia but to all those who sought my destruction I always had one answer: "I'm Still Standing." The hymn from Sir Elton John is the best description of how I feel about my survival and triumph over a system that should not be called part of the Humanities since it is hardly humane in its treatment of difference. I have also found deplorable the treatment of students in academia. My former students are the people I miss the most about teaching. But, as one of my former students told me once and I have found it to be true: "You will always have students." So we bring this compendium to you: the totality of a life of poetry. May you feel an embrace from me as you read them. To everyone who reads these pages: I'm Still Standing! Yeah, Yeah, Yeah!"

"Luzma compellingly stated how she was openly a Latina lesbian academic at a time and place where it was outright dangerous: "I received sexual harassment calls and death threats. I was always on the lookout. It was very difficult, but it was very important because it also showed me I had to be courageous, not only for myself but also for others.""

"The chapbook was published in Puerto Rico as a gift to Nemir, my muse at that time (2008/2009); a woman I truly love."

"My first collection: Una puertorriqueña en Penna came out of those years and the racism I experienced while being a graduate student at Bryn Mawr College. Some of the poems are also a defense of my Puerto Rican culture and language. It is sad to say that the poems were not accepted by a Latino publishing house at the time because I did not write "like a woman." In other words, I was supposed to write about flowers, gardening and domestic chores. This first anthology was amplified to be the final book, En el país de las maravillas, which my dearest Chicana sister, Norma Alarcón, agreed to publish as the first book from her established press: Third Woman. Third Woman Press gave me a platform from which to publish without pressure from the establishment on thematics. They also published my next two books: ...Y otras desgracias and The Margarita Poems. The day I received a hand written note from Maya Angelou, stating that she had read The Margarita Poems and I should consider her another Margarita, was a private moment of recognition."