Red Menace!!: "Love Poem" ~Judy Grahn

~The Red Menace~

Radical Feminist, Anarcha-Socialist, Lezbian Queer Dyke Cunt Lover, Secular Humanist, Activist Social Change Agent, Mestiza-Classed, Community Builder, RED MENACE!!

I'm a Public Leader, Community Organizer, and Community Builder. And I'm also an Anarcha-Socialist who fights to eliminate capitalism and other political, social, and economic hierarchies to create a society without institutions where all people have equal access to knowledge and production, emphasizes trade unions and decentralized methods of direct democracy, and finds any institutional form to be abusive. And I'm a Radical Feminist who believes the cause of women's oppression to be within patriarchy and the cause of all oppression to be in the mimicked hierarchical structures such as capitalism and amerikkkanism and globalism and colonialism and imperialism and jesusgodism which means society needs to be recreated and not changed cuz change just rearranges the same shit in a different order. And I'm a Secular Humanist who believes we got ourselves into this mess and can only rely on ourselves to get the hell out. And I'm Mestiza-Classed: the educated working-class wonder! And a Lezbian Queer Dyke Cunt Lover. An active activist social change agent iconoclastic catalyst. A VOICE with capital letters that stand tall and out and above and are heard and seen...always an outspoken mouth on the pretty face of the strong head of an independent woman. I'm an individual within the collective. And a Revolution! I'm a ReVoLuTiOn! and revolutionizer. A riotous redhead. THE Red Menace!

Saturday, March 20, 2010

"Love Poem" ~Judy Grahn

At the place where her breasts
come together
two thumbs width a channel,
I ride my hands to anchor
my eyes to angle.

At the place where thighs
come together,
I said, "You smell like the ocean,"
and lay down my tongue
by the dark tooth edge of sleeping.
"Swim," she said.
And I did.
I did.

- reprinted from the Iowa City Women's Press Collective's "Ain't I A Woman?", Iowa City, IA, 1971

My all-time favorite love poem!!! I bonded over this poem with a woman who was part of the Iowa City Women's Press Collective when she recalled the line "two tumbs width a channel" and claimed it was the most beautiful love poem she had ever read. She had forgotten the title but knew it was Judy Grahn's and printed in "Ain't I A Woman?". I immediately remembered the poem, found it in my research materials, and read it aloud to her. It is clearly unforgettable and powerful, truly bringing women together - even across generations...