As part of a Unitarian Universalist service focusing on women’s history month, I revisited the work of Audre Lorde in her book Sister Outsider, Essays and Speeches, first published by The Crossing Press in 1984.
It is also Nation Poetry Month and I wanted to bring you review of a book written by the important poet Audre Lorde that was so important to me when I was a young poet.
The review is on Book Tube and below the video is the text.
Recently, I reread Sister Outsider, essays and speeches by the important and often quoted poet, Audre Lorde. Sister Outsider was first published in 1984 by The Crossing Press.
Lorde was born in 1934 and died in 1992, having been cut down by breast cancer in the prime of her life.
I was fortunate to hear the poet Audre Lorde speak and read several times when I was in my twenties. Lorde was an important figure to me when I was a budding writer and a young adult looking inward and outward and making sense of life.
It was interesting to re-read this book which I had last read close to the date of publication and to see the places where I had highlighted Lorde’s words.
In this collection of writing, Lorde writes about the importance of speaking your truth, of being all parts of yourself, accepting difference, knowing yourself, and being unafraid to feel. Since so much has changed since she died, I found myself wondering what she would say about the mess we are in now.
And there in her essay, “Age, Race, Class, and Sex” is a clue to what she would say and did say as she foresaw the future. In prose, she writes: “Change means growth, and growth can be painful.”
Then she includes “Outlines,” an unpublished poem:
We have chosen each other
and the edge of each other’s battles
the war is the same
if we lose
someday women’s blood will congeal
upon a dead planet
if we win
there is no telling
we seek beyond history
for a new and more possible meeting.
Rereading Sister Outsider, essays and speeches by the important poet Audre Lorde first published in 1984 by The Crossing Press reminded me of who we can be.
This is Janet Mason with reviews for Spotify and Book Tube.
For more information on my most recent novel Loving Artemis, an endearing tale of revolution, love, and marriage, click here:
I am delighted to bring you this excerpt from my novel Loving Artemis, an endearing tale of revolution, love and marriage (published in 2022 by Thorned Heart Press) that was recently published in the anthology Favorite Scenes From Favorite Authors, from I Heart Sapphic Books. I am particularly enthusiastic about this excerpt because it was inspired by the Lesbian poet Sappho. The excerpt is called “The trees blushing”
“Blurb:
Artemis found the love of her life when she met Linda, but their passionate relationship fizzles when Artemis lands herself on the other side of the law. Pulling the pieces of her life together, Artemis rekindles her relationship with Linda, and together they raise a daughter.
Meanwhile, Grace, running from her past, starts a life with Thalia. At a pride parade, Grace spots someone who reminds her of Artemis, who she was briefly involved with in her youth. Old feelings are rekindled. A lifetime of rejection, abandonment, and fleeing rears its head. Now she must come to terms with her past, put her relationship with Artemis to rest–or risk losing everything.
Artemis and Grace embark on a journey of revolution, love, and marriage and discover that love finds us when we least expect it.
Tell us about this scene:
Art (Artemis) and the love of her life Linda take a motorcycle ride to the nearby quarry where they make love for the first time.
Why did you choose this scene as your favorite?
This scene is heavily influenced by my reading of the ancient Greek poet Sappho (who lived on the Island of Lesvos).
* * *
Excerpt:
(from chapter ten)
They got back on the bike. Art turned the key in the ignition and pulled forward slowly. This was where Art had come with her old girlfriend Allison. They had been on foot then, that first time when they hid behind the trees and called out to each other with lines from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Art remembered the light shining through the trees, the way it did now as it danced on the ground around them. It was summer then. Now, red, orange, and brown leaves covered the path. Art felt the bump of tree roots under the tires. She brought the bike to a halt. She sat there for a minute, feeling the warmth of Linda behind her: the inside of Linda’s thighs cupping her ass; Linda’s arms hugging her waist. Art had been thinking that it didn’t get better than this. But now she knew it did — and it would. The difference between the time that she first came here with Allison and now, coming here with Linda, was that Art had been here before. She knew what she was doing. But she wanted it to be Linda’s idea. Linda got off the bike first. She walked to a log next to the path and sat down.
“I can see the lake from here,” said Linda. The back of her head was toward Art. Her windswept hair fell over her jacket collar.
“Come on over.” Art swung her leg over the bike. She put down the kickstand and stood there for a moment, holding the handlebars until she made sure that the bike was on steady ground. Then she walked the bike to the side of the path — beyond the log where Linda was sitting.
A narrow trail shot off from the path. It looked familiar. Art walked over to the log. “You can see the lake from here,” Art said. “I never realized that before.”
Linda scooted closer to Art. “You know the first time I walked into school with you, the girl sitting next to me in homeroom asked, ‘Who’s that cute guy with the motorcycle?'”
Art looked at her.
“Art is a guy’s name,” Linda explained.
“It’s short for Artemis,” answered Art. “My mother’s Greek. Artemis is a goddess from Greek mythology.”
“Yeah, the goddess of the hunt. She was always my favorite,” replied Linda, looking at Art perceptively. “I think it’s cool that you’re Greek.”
Art looked into Linda’s green eyes. The woods were shady. Afternoon light filtered through red and orange leaves. Linda’s eyes blazed into Art’s.
“You would make a cute guy,” Linda continued.
Art was drawn into the green vortex of Linda’s eyes. Art’s arms and legs trembled and tiny flames scorched her skin. She opened her mouth slightly to say something, but speech eluded her. Linda leaned in and kissed her. Art kissed her back. Linda’s lips felt as soft as moist rose petals and she smelled like musk oil. Art didn’t know if Linda wore perfume or if the scent came from her own body. A breeze rustled the leaves. Art’s heart trembled. This wasn’t the first time she kissed a girl, but this kiss felt different. A universe opened between them. Their tongues found new language. Soon, Art drew back. Linda looked radiant, as if the moon and stars were glowing inside of her. Still speechless, Art remembered that there was something she wanted to say.
Words formed on her lips: “But I’m not a boy. I’m a girl.”
“A smart girl,” whispered Linda. “I like that.”
This time, Art leaned in and kissed Linda. Their hands were everywhere. They came up for air, stood, and stumbled ahead on the path. They turned down a narrow path and found a large mossy patch that looked inviting. Art thought she had been here before with Allison, but she wasn’t sure if this was the exact place. Now, here with Linda, it was new. They were standing, kneeling, lying on the ground, rolling, touching. It was too cool a day to take off their clothes, but, as it turned out, it didn’t matter. There would be plenty of time for that later.
Art rolled on top of Linda. Excitement sparked in her groin and danced throughout her body. Her fingers tingled. Her tongue entwined with Linda’s. When they were done kissing, Art drew back and looked at Linda. Her hair was the deep red of autumn apples. Her skin was radiant. Shifting her weight, Art thrust her thigh against Linda’s crotch.
Linda groaned. “I’ve wanted to do this ever since I got on your bike with you,” she whispered.
Art had wanted to do this ever since she set eyes on Linda. She wanted the bike more than anything, but she wanted Linda just as much. Maybe Linda was the reason she bought the bike. Yiayia (her Greek grandmother)would have understood. The wind blew harder and the leaves rustled. A distant roaring filled Art’s ears. Linda moaned and writhed under Art, as Art rubbed her crotch in a circular motion on Linda’s thigh. Cries overflowed from her throat. A humming filled her ears. The moss felt like moist velvet under her fingertips. It was chilly, but Art was filled with warmth. She rolled to the side.
As she lay there, her arms circling Linda, she imagined that the red and orange leaves looking down at them were the trees blushing.
Here is the link to the free anthology on BookFunnel:
I was (and still am) so happy that this essay was published in the Harvard Gay and Lesbian Review that I immediately wanted to bring it to you. The world is changing and I’m so glad to be changing with it!
Janet Mason (right) and her partner Barbara (left) in 2014.
In the old days, I thought of the marriages of people of the same sex (usually older lesbians) in our circle as “quaint.” My partner Barbara and I were new lovers. This was in the early 1980s, long before marriage equality was legally recognized. As one older former acquaintance wrote to me in 2015, “we never thought we’d see the day when it would be legal.”
We knew them as Pat and Carol and met them through the women’s liberation movement circles that made up our community at the time. We called it “The Women’s Community.” I don’t remember Carol’s last name, but I remember them getting married in the early 1980s at a mutual friend’s home. They both wore tuxes. Pat’s was black and Carol’s was white. I found their choice of wardrobe to be memorable, even if my partner and I did think they were imitating an outmoded patriarchal institution. They were probably about 25 years older than us.
Carol wrote to me in 2015. Her partner Pat had died about a decade before that. Same-sex marriage may not have been legal when they got married in the 1980s, but in their eyes, they were married. Even if not legally, they were at least committed to each other, and even had the ceremony with friends witnessing their union. However, Pat never got to see the day when same-sex marriage became legal.
Maybe it was a case of not wanting what we thought we’d never have, but both my partner and I didn’t think that marriage was for us. Like two of the characters in my novel Loving Artemis, an endearing tale of revolution, love, and marriage, we thought marriage had too much baggage and history as a patriarchal institution.
Every now and then, friends would have commitment ceremonies, and we even went to a few, but stubbornly maintained that there was no point to it unless same-sex marriage were legal. It still wasn’t something that we ever thought we’d see, so mostly we didn’t think about it. My relationship with marriage was complicated to say the least. I grew up in a time and place where it was expected that all females should find a man, settle down, and have children. Once I came out in the early 1980s, I was extremely happy to have escaped the heterosexual yoke of marriage and children. My partner had been married to a man before we got together. That was common in those days, since it was expected of us. The lesbian poet Adrienne Rich called it “compulsory heterosexuality.”
Then, when I was around forty, a lesbian baby boom started happening all around us. It probably felt like more lesbians were having babies than actually were, but it seemed like having children was another expectation from which I managed to escape. My partner and I certainly supported the right of lesbian women and gay men to have children, but we always said that “having children was the best thing we never did.”
So, when President Biden signed the Respect for Marriage Act last year, and Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer talked about protecting children, it made perfect sense. Children are the most vulnerable victims of hard divorces, and it is far worse when each parent does not have the legal rights that marriage provides.
Anyway, the years went on, and we were getting older. We were afraid that the surviving one would have legal problems and might even lose the house if she couldn’t pay the taxes on it. But when we did finally get married, it meant more than being protected legally. Like many other same-sex couples, we felt like legal marriage had deepened the bond between us.
By the time 2015 came along, and the U.S. Supreme Court made marriage equality the law of the land, Barbara and I were already married. Another lesbian couple—who had been together for more years than we had—suggested that we have a double wedding at a local county that was performing same-sex marriages before it was legal nationwide. Gleefully, we went off to our “protest wedding,” which was later made legal. Leaving the courthouse after we had done the deed and signed the papers, we all agreed that it felt too easy.
This was on the heels of Edie Windsor’s landmark victory, whose case in 2013, United States v. Windsor, overturned Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act. Two years later, in 2015, history was made when the Supreme Court in Obergefell v. Hodges made full marriage equality the law of the land.
My partner and I were both amazed on that day, and we were astounded again when the Respect for Marriage Act was signed into law. When this Act was signed into law, my partner and I were both very happy. I didn’t make the connection earlier, but even as I was joking around and calling Barbara “my bride,” I must have been channeling the happiness of Pat and Carol and all of the older LGBT+ couples that I once regarded as “quaint.”
Janet Mason is the author of the novels Loving Artemis, an endearing tale of revolution, love, and marriage (Thorned Heart Press); The Unicorn, The Mystery, and THEY, a biblical tale of secret genders (both from Adelaide Books). She is also the author of Tea Leaves, a memoir of mothers and daughters (Bella Books) for which she received a Goldie award. She has been with her partner, Barbara, for thirty-nine years. They have been legally married for nine years.
To read the article on the Harvard Gay and Lesbian Review, click here.
For more information on my most recent novel Loving Artemis, an endearing tale of revolution, love, and marriage, click here:
Every day is gratitude day at my house. A couple of months ago, my partner and I started saying three or more things we are grateful for at the end of each day. The list seems to grow longer and longer. I later learned that this an important way to rewire your brain. A retired therapist friend mentioned that this is a good way to avoid depression.
That makes sense. I have been feeling extraordinarily good lately. Not that I am not saddened by the slaughter of humans and other animals. One of the things that I am constantly grateful for is for going vegan several years ago. My partner and I both feel terrific and are still amazed at the transformation in our bodies.
As to advice on going vegan, there is no time like the present.
I wanted to share this photo that I found online.
Another thing that I’m grateful for is seeing Patti Smith last night at the Free Library of Philadelphia where she talked about gratitude being the underlying them of her newly released “Book of Days.” She sang several songs as well as talking about the photographs in her book. Thank you, Patti, for your inspiring words.
I am also grateful for the books that I have written, for the characters that have come to me, and for the fact that so many of you have read them and are reading them.
For more information on my most recent novel Loving Artemis, an endearing tale of revolution, love, and marriage, click here:
Halloween is that time of the thinning of the veil between us and the other world. It doesn’t have to be spooky, but it often is.
There are spooky things that happen year around. Homophobia and transphobia are spooky. Feeling that you have to live a double life and denying who you are is also spooky.
It can be spooky being queer, such as in the case of the characters (based on real people) who lived in the 1970s in my novel Loving Artemis, an endearing tale of revolution, love, and marriage, published in August 2022 by Thorned Heart Press.
Homophobia and transphobia were also spooky in the Middle Ages in the French countryside that I write about in The Unicorn, The Mystery (from Adelaide Books) and in the desert culture of Biblical Irael and the rest of the Middle East where my novel THEY, a biblical tale of secret genders (also from Adelaide Books).
So, this Halloween, scare the spookiness away and embrace the good spirits from the other side!
Happy Halloween!
For information on my most recently published novel Loving Artemis click here
Yesterday, my partner and I went to a local popular coffeeshop chain anticipating a rare meal out and a good time. We had each received gift certificates from doing a survey. What we found was that we could only eat one item because it was the only thing they sold that was free from animal products. To add insult to injury, the music was so loud that the servers kept thinking we were saying “bacon” when we said “vegan.” They responded by telling us about pork products to our horror and confusion.
On the way out I noticed that there was “A Kindness” board and post-Its for customers to leave comments. I don’t think it was exactly what they meant, but I couldn’t help leaving the message “More vegan products please.” Later I reflected that vegan always means kindness, especially to the animals that humans routinely eat. And I did say please.
Humans are animals also. I went to a plant-based diet the year I turned sixty and after I had a health scare, which is one reason that I try not to be too judgmental of what most people eat. Besides, I am a Buddhist, and try to “water the good seeds.” I figure that most of us have the potential to be vegan, because most do eat a vegetable now and then and can keep on going with that. But I do think it is a shame that people have been brainwashed by advertising (mostly from the food and pharmaceutical industries).
Then there are the health benefits of going to a plant-based diet. After three years, my partner and I feel so healthy that we would never go back to the Standard American Diet (SAD). Also, the better and stronger we become the more adamant we are about the rights of the animals and the future of the planet.
As a writer, I feel that being on a healthy plant-based diet is a “secret weapon” (in plain sight). I was always a prolific writer. But since I’ve gone to a healthy plant-based diet I have more energy, so I often feel unstoppable. As a result, I kept sending out the manuscript for my latest published novel Loving Artemis, an endearing tale of revolution, love and marriage which was recently published by Thorned Heart Press.
So that’s what being a vegan means to me. “Vegan, not bacon.”
For information on my novel Loving Artemis click here
I am delighted to be able to bring you this review by the esteemed author Maria G. Fama on my novel Loving Artemis, An Endearing Tale of Revolution, Love and Marriage (Thorned Heart Press; August 16, 2022):
In her absorbing new novel, Loving Artemis, Janet Mason gives her readers a coming-of-age tale masterfully framed by the story of Thalia and Grace, two professional, middle-aged women in a long-term relationship in 2015. We are then taken back in time to the turbulent late 1970s, when the Civil Rights, Gay Rights, and Women’s Rights Movements were making inroads into the national consciousness. There we meet bright, talented, working-class teenage girls, Artemis, Grace, and Linda, among other interesting characters, both male and female. The girls grapple with their sexuality, family expectations, education, relationships, and life decisions, while finding their way in a world with many pitfalls, including drugs and alcohol. This novel contains an added bonus of providing engrossing facts about history, science, culture, and religion, as Artemis and Grace ponder them.
We are taken back in time to the turbulent late 1970s, when the Civil Rights, Gay Rights, and Women’s Rights Movements were making inroads into the national consciousness. There we meet bright, talented, working-class teenage girls.
Loving Artemis offers within its pages, stories of romance, danger, disappointment, love, and the ultimate vindication of the human spirit. This novel is very rich and satisfying and is not to be missed.
In The Last Onea novel by Fatima Daas from Other Press (2021), I both lost and found myself. The book is translated from the French by Lara Vernaud.
The Last One is a novel of identity or of identities—many of them conflicting. It isn’t so much as Walt Whitman said, “I am large—I contain multitudes” as it is “I am not small, I refuse to check one box.”
The author, Fatima Daas, is French and of Algerian ancestry. She visits Algeria and her Algerian relatives occasionally, but she lives in France. In her novel, she proves successively that she can be a girl who looks like a boy but who really is a lesbian. She proves that she can be Muslim as well as lesbian. She shows that she can be polyamorous and at the same time be obsessed with one person.
She is entitled to be anyone she wants—and everyone at once.
Because of her first sentence in each chapter where she repeats the line, “My name is Fatima,” sometimes including her last name and because of the spareness of the language, I was reminded of the poetic form called the ghazal. The ghazal, in which lines are repeated, is a type of Arabic poetry. The ghazal is known because it was used by such well-known poets as Rumi and Hafiz. It was historically sung and was popularized in the West by artists such as Ravi Shanker in the 1960s.
The novel seemingly meanders but comes together in the identity of the author who claims all that she is.
In one passage, Daas writes:
“Cassandra and I both took time off work for Gay Pride.
An activist friend, who heard me boasting about it, grabbed me by the arm to correct me.
“PRIDE, Fatima! Not Gay Pride. You make lesbians and everyone else in the community invisible when you say Gay Pride.”
There was gentleness in her voice, and indignation.
But no aggression.
I learned from her.
I replaced Gay Pride with Pride.”
The Last One is a novel about including and claiming all parts of oneself. The author writes a conversation about her novel that she imagines having with her mother:
“It’s the story of a girl who isn’t really a girl, who isn’t Algerian or French, who isn’t from Clichy (Clisheee) or Paris, a Muslim I think, but not a good Muslim, a lesbian whose homophobia is built into her. What else?”
When I read the novel, published by Other Press, I found a page-turner that made me see and think. The Last One is a small but mighty book. I highly recommend it.
This is Janet Mason writing for Book Tube.
To learn more about my novel THEY, a biblical tale of secret genders (published by Adelaide Books New York/Lisbon), click here.
To learn more about my latest published novel — The Unicorn, The Mystery, click here:
I was really delighted to find out that Angela Davis is speaking out about veganism and against abuse of animals in a capitalist context.
Angela Davis is important Civil Rights and feminist activist who shaped my youth. I remember being delighted when she came out as a lesbian. So, we have a few things in common — me and Angela — and you can, too!
My partner and I saw Angela in person several times when we were younger.
I never was much of a meat eater, but I’ve been strictly vegan now (after a health crisis) for two and a half years now. The results have been amazing. My partner and I were thinking of going vegan for some years before that out of compassion for the animals. I’ve heard the argument that one reason is better than the other. But all human beings are animals. So, as a Buddhist, it is easy for me to recognize that veganism is the way for all animals–and for the planet also!
I hope you enjoy this video as much as I did!
To learn more about my novel THEY, a biblical tale of secret genders (published by Adelaide Books New York/Lisbon), click here.
To learn more about my latest published novel — The Unicorn, The Mystery, click here:
On this last Sunday of June 2022, I thought it fitting to publish a piece of my novel The Unicorn, The Mystery (Adelaide Press–NYC/Lisbon) that was included in the issue titled Glorious Defiance and came out in June. As we witness the last gasps of patriarchy attempting to control women, I am reminded that Sinister Wisdom, a multicultural lesbian literary and art journal, has long been an important voice for lesbians–a group of people who have had to live on the margins of patriarchy. I’m publishing part of the story that was published in the Journal and below that is a link to learn more about Sinister Wisdom.
KITTY—A REPRESENTATIVE OF SATAN?
Janet Mason
(In an abbey in the French countryside, circa 1490)
I had wandered way past my destination when I decided to look for the unicorn. I had seen the unicorn in the abbey before, after all. Who knew where she might be? I had been headed to the library in the church. I had gone right past the church and was almost to the end of the abbey at the east wall. Perhaps I wandered there intentionally. This was one of my favorite places. The grounds were more overgrown. Vines wound around trees. The grass was higher. I could feel it tickling my toes in my sandals. I looked down and saw the periwinkle face of a wildflower smiling up at me. Perhaps the quietness had to do with the fact that the nuns lived in this area and that they had taken a vow of silence. I stood still for a moment and listened. I heard the rustle of wind in the tree branches and the grass. I heard the hum of the insects. I heard the chirp of a passing bird. I heard another bird responding. Perhaps they were warning each other about my presence. Then I heard something that I almost never heard in the abbey. It was the sound of female voices. Two women whispered. I could hear their voices distinctly. One had a deeper voice and the other one was higher. I didn’t want to scare them, so I hid behind the medlar bush. I felt ashamed of the fact that I was spying on them, but maybe they would lead me to the unicorn. Maybe the unicorn was spying on the nuns too. I also felt ashamed of myself because even as a lowly monk I could still go to the library. In fact, I was expected to go there—when I wasn’t huffing and puffing bringing the pigs their slop or praying in the church until my knees were sore. By comparison, the nuns weren’t allowed in the library unless they
were cleaning it. But, for some reason, I found this part of the abbey—with its overgrown weeds and the silence of cloistered nuns—intriguing. The branches were in front of my eyes so I couldn’t see much, but I could just make out the white habits of the two nuns. One was shorter than the other. “Here, Kitty, Kitty,” said one I could only see the bottom of her white habit, but she paused. I had the distinct impression that she was looking around. “Forget about Kitty for one moment,” said the one with the higher voice. “But she might need me,” responded the nun with the lower voice. “I brought a pail with some water in it. I was going to bring milk, but I was afraid it would cause suspicion if word got out that I was taking things from the larder.” “Stealing,” replied the one with the higher voice. “You would be stealing from the larder if you brought milk for Kitty, and stealing is a sin.” Stealing was a sin and that was serious. But the nun with the higher voice sounded like she was on the verge of a giggle….
You can read about Sinister Wisdom by clicking here.
Click here to hear me read from another section of The Unicorn, The Mystery about the Goddess Bastet.
To learn more about The Unicorn, The Mystery, click here:
Janet Mason, author 