Lesbian Poetry Retrospective Part 1

Gertrude Stein (1874-1925)

Known perhaps as much for her experimental prose style as she is for her relationship with Alice B. Toklas, Gertrude Stein was born in Pennsylvania but spent most of her life in Paris helping to cultivate the modernist movement.

Stein was inspired by several distinct influences and experiences: her famous brother, Leo Stein; studying psychology with William James; a failed attempt to finish medical school; Picasso’s cubism (see Tender Buttons); the paintings of Cezanne and Matisse; and her frustrating attempt to gain recognition for her own work, including Three Lives, Things as They Are and The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, which told the story of their famous relationship.

The following poem, “Pink Melon Joy,” was published in Geography and Play.

“Pink Melon Joy”

My dear what is meat.
I certainly regret visiting.
My dear what does it matter.
Leaning.
Maintaining maintaining checkers.
I left a leaf and I meant it.
Splintering and hams.
I caught a cold.
Bessie
They are dirty.
Not polite.
Not steel.
Not fireless.
Not bewildered.
Not a present.
Why do I give old boats.
Theresa.
Exchange in bicycles.
It happened that in the aggregate and they did not

hear then, it happened in the aggregate that they were

alone.
It is funny. When examples are borrowing and little

pleasures are seeking after not exactly a box then comes

the time for drilling. Left left or left. Not up. Really
believe me it is sheltered oaks that matter. It is they

who are sighing. It really is.
Not when I hear it.

Elizabeth Bishop (1911-1979)

She was certainly not the most prolific writer of her generation, but Elizabeth Bishop is widely considered to be an American master. Her mentors included Marianne Moore, whom she met at Vassar, and Robert Lowell.

Bishop’s life was difficult from the beginning. Her father died of Bright’s disease before her first birthday, and her mother was hospitalized for mental illness for much of Bishop’s life. Bishop also struggled with alcoholism, and her lover, Lota de Macedo Soares, committed suicide while the two were living together in Brazil.

Bishop was as weary about proclaiming her sexuality as she was resistant to the title “woman poet.” Intensely private, she once told Robert Lowell, "When you write my epitaph, you must say I was the loneliest person who ever lived.”

“It is marvellous to wake up together”

It is marvellous to wake up together
At the same minute; marvellous to hear
The rain begin suddenly all over the roof,
To feel the air suddenly clear
As if electricity had passed through it
From a black mesh of wires in the sky.
All over the roof the rain hisses,
And below, the light falling of kisses.
An electrical storm is coming or moving away;
It is the prickling air that wakes us up.
If lightning struck the house now, it would run
From the four blue china balls on top
Down the roof and down the rods all around us,
And we imagine dreamily
How the whole house caught in a bird-cage of lightning
Would be quite delightful rather than frightening;
And from the same simplified point of view
Of night and lying flat on one's back
All things might change equally easily,
Since always to warn us there must be these black
Electrical wires dangling. Without surprise
The world might change to something quite different,
As the air changes or the lightning comes without our blinking,
Change as the kisses are changing without our thinking.