Minnie Bruce Pratt

The long-awaited reprint of this classic work of lesbian literature. Pratt's brave memoir recounts her struggle to overcome the repressive traditions of the American South and live her life honestly. It chronicles her youth, marriage, her eventual decision to come out and her life with author and transgendered activist Leslie Feinberg.

S/He

"The wild terrain of personal and political change is explored in this vivid, lyrical collection... Essential reading by this award-winning lesbian author, demonstrating that 'the will to change is the true rebellion.'"--BOOK JACKET.

Essays, 1980-1991

Rebellion

This collection of love poems draws us into the sacred liminal space that surrounds death. With her beloved gravely ill, poet and activist Minnie Bruce Pratt turns to daily walks and writing to find a way to go on in a world where injustice brings so much loss and death. Each poem is a pocket lens "to swivel out and magnify" the beauty in "the little glints, insignificant" that catch her eye: "The first flowers, smaller than this s." She also chronicles the quiet rooms of "pain and the body's memory," bringing the reader carefully into moments that will be familiar to anyone who has suffered similar loss. Even as she asks, "What's the use of poetry? Not one word comes back to talk me out of pain," the book delivers a vision of love that is boldly political and laced with a tumultuous hope that promises: "Revolution is bigger than both of us, revolution is a science that infers the future presence of us." This lucid poetry is a testimony to the radical act of being present and offers this balm: that the generative power of love continues after death. Oh Death Someone sang, Oh death! Oh death! Won't you pass me over for another day? Someone said, I dreamed of you last night. I dreamed you were telling me your whole life story. Whole. Whorled. Welkin, winkle, wrinkle. The loop of time holds us all together. The pile of laundry on the bed. You folding socks one inside the other. We have had this day, and now this night. The clothes are put away, and from the bed we see the moon folding light into darkness, not death.

Magnified

"Designated as the prestigious 1989 Lamont Poetry Selection by the Academy of American Poets, and winner of the 1991 American Library Association Gay/Lesbian Book Award, Pratt's Crime Against Nature is a stunning achievement. This beautifully crafted sequence of poems takes its title from language in the statute under which the author could have been prosecuted as a lesbian if she had sought legal custody of her children. These are poems of despair, self-doubt, sexual bliss, sexual shame, exhilaration, rage, hope, victory. In Crime Against Nature, Pratt breathes new life into the words lesbian, poet, mother. Without contradiction or self-denial, she holds herself, her loves, and her children in a world of passion, of power being realized, of wholeness."--AUTHOR WEBSITE.

Crime Against Nature

Barbara Smith

Elly Bulkin

Politics. Cultural Writing. New to SPD. The award-winning feminist and lesbian press Firebrand Books closed its doors last year after sixteen years in the business. The authors of YOURS IN STRUGGLE -- Elly Bulkin, Minnie Bruce Pratt, and Barbara Smith -- have now made the 1988 Firebrand edition of their collaborative work available through SPD. They write, YOURS IN STRUGGLE happened because we were able to talk to each other in the fist place, despite our very different identities and backgrounds -- white Christian-raised Southerner, Afro-American, Ashkenazi Jew. Each of us speaks only for herself, and we do not necessarily agree with each other. Yet we believe our cooperation on this book indicates concrete possibilities for coalition work.

Three Feminist Perspectives on Anti-semitism and Racism

Yours in Struggle

The Sound of One Fork

A reissue of the first collection of poetry by the author of Crime Against Nature evokes the lesbian odyssey in search of a place to live as one chooses and captures the eroticism and sensuality of love for another woman. Simultaneous.

Poetry

We Say We Love Each Other

Inside the money machine

Introduction by Julie R. Enszer contains biographical information about the author as well as the afterword.

Crime against nature

Suffused with pain and power, Minnie Bruce Pratt's poetry is as evocative of the swamps and streets of the southern United States as it is of the emotional lives of those too often forced into the margins of society. Vivid, lush, and intensely honest, these poems capture the rough edges of the world and force us to pay attention.

Selected and New Poems

The Dirt She Ate

"In these lyrical vignettes, Pratt expands the boundaries of gender and its theory. She explores the inconsistencies, the infinities, the fluidity of sex and gender, and asks intriguing questions: How many ways are there to be girl, boy, man, woman? Is there a connection between feminine, masculine, lesbian, heterosexual, between desire and liberation? How many ways can the body's sex vary---by chromosomes, hormones, genitals? How many ways can our gender expressions multiply---between home and work, at the computer and when we kiss someone, in our dreams and when we walk down the street? What is our dream of who we want to be? Pratt's stories are part of new theory appearing at the intersections---of the feminism of U.S. women's liberation, the writings of women of color in the U.S. and internationally, the queer ideas of lesbian and gay liberation, and the emerging thought of transgender liberation. S/HE helps move these ideas into action by giving us theory that has flesh and breath, that exists in all of our eccentric, complicated, daily lives."--BOOK JACKET.

S/HE

Chandra Talpade Mohanty

Robin Riley

Women across the globe are being dramatically affected by war as currently waged by the USA. But there has been little public space for dialogue about the complex relationship between feminism, women, and war. The editors of Feminism and War have brought together a diverse set of leading theorists and activists who examine the questions raised by ongoing American military initiatives, such as: What are the implications of an imperial nation/state laying claim to women's liberation? What is the relation between this claim and resulting American foreign policy and military action? Did American intervention and invasion in fact result in liberation for women in Afghanistan and Iraq? What multiple concepts are embedded in the phrase "women’s liberation"? How are these connected to the specifics of religion, culture, history, economics, and nation within current conflicts? What is the relation between the lives of Afghan and Iraqi women before and after invasion, and that of women living in the US? How do women who define themselves as feminists resist or acquiesce to this nation/state claim in current theory and organizing? Feminism and War reveals and critically analyzes the complicated ways in which America uses gender, race, class, nationalism, imperialism to justify, legitimate, and continue war. Each chapter builds on the next to develop an anti-racist, feminist politics that places imperialist power, and forms of resistance to it, central to its comprehensive analysis.

Confronting US Imperialism

Feminism and War

Women across the globe are being dramatically affected by war as currently waged by the USA. But there has been little public space for dialogue about the complex relationship between feminism, women, and war. The editors of Feminism and War have brought together a diverse set of leading theorists and activists who examine the questions raised by ongoing American military initiatives, such as: What are the implications of an imperial nation/state laying claim to women's liberation? What is the relation between this claim and resulting American foreign policy and military action? Did American intervention and invasion in fact result in liberation for women in Afghanistan and Iraq? What multiple concepts are embedded in the phrase "women's liberation"? How are these connected to the specifics of religion, culture, history, economics, and nation within current conflicts? What is the relation between the lives of Afghan and Iraqi women before and after invasion, and that of women living in the US? How do women who define themselves as feminists resist or acquiesce to this nation/state claim in current theory and organizing? Feminism and War reveals and critically analyzes the complicated ways in which America uses gender, race, class, nationalism, imperialism to justify, legitimate, and continue war. Each chapter builds on the next to develop an anti-racist, feminist politics that places imperialist power, and forms of resistance to it, central to its comprehensive analysis.

Division on Earth and Life Studies

Institute for Laboratory Animal Research

National Academy of Sciences Staff

Committee on the Use of Animals in Research (U.S.)

Institute of Medicine Staff

Institute of Medicine (U.S.)

The necessity forÂ animalÂ use in biomedical research is a hotly debated topic in classrooms throughout the country. Frequently teachers and students do not have access toÂ balanced, Â factual material to foster an informed discussion on the topic. This colorful, 50-page booklet is designed to educate teenagers about the role of animal research in combating disease, past and present; the perspective of animal use within the whole spectrum of biomedical research; the regulations and oversight that govern animal research; and the continuing efforts to use animals more efficiently and humanely.

Minnie Bruce Pratt

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