Living As a Lesbian
poetry
Cheryl Clarke
—
Living as a Lesbian, Cheryl Clarke’s second volume of poetry (the first is Narratives: Poems in the Tradition of Black Women, New York: Kitchen Table Women of Color Press, 1983), has embedded in its title the question: ‘What is it like to live as a lesbian?’ And it announces, ‘I live as a Lesbian.’ To the com- munities often heterosexual, male, white woman, white lesbian, and frankly hetero-patriarchal, in which Cheryl Clarke must live as a lesbian, a woman, a Black woman and a Black lesbian, she takes her ‘Pentax’ portrait eye, blues ear, and commitment to a language which is not ‘tacky- precious’ (Clarke, ‘Nappy Edges by Ntozake Shange,’ Conditions Five, 1979. 1 60), and shows the reader what it is to live as a lesbian.
This living is no small task in a culture where homophobia and racism are rampant, and where Clarke or her persona(e)- and the distance between them most often seems negligible- are vulnerable on many fronts. It is a strength of the poems that they seem both to recognize the dangers and transcend the silence which is too often the consequence of such recognition. In fact, Clarke has written elsewhere that ‘Lesbianism is not the only way I see the world, but it’s basically how I survive and in many cases, how I triumph mentally and emotionally’ (‘Black Women on Black Women Writers: Conversations and Questions,’ Conditions: Nine, 1983. 121). It is clear that announcing the word ‘Lesbian’ in the title and in other poems is part of a survival strategy, like Audre Lorde’s challenge to ‘Speak/because we were never meant to survive’ (‘A Litany for Survival,’ Black Unicorn, New York: Norton, 1978. 31 ).
Clarke asks everyone, but particularly those who are similarly embattled, to ‘Leave signs of struggle. / Leave signs of triumph. / And leave signs.’ In a central poem in this volume, ‘Living as a Lesbian underground: a futuristic fantasy,’ Clarke makes connections between various oppressions people face in white hetero-patriarchy. Clarke reminds us that ‘Johannesburg is Jamesburg, New Jersey. / Apartheid is the board of education in Canarsie’ (75). And she links racism and homophobia in the same poem where she starts with a portrait of ‘fugitive slaves/ poets and griots’ traveling futuristic underground railroads, and ends with the assertion that ‘It’s all the same-/ a-rabs, gooks, wogs, queers-/ a n****r by any other name. . . .’
This last, the willingness and necessity to see the multiplicity of the effects on her life, and her unwillingness to rank oppressions, may be unpopular in some of the communities of which Clarke is a member. It is clear, however, that frequently in a white lesbian community Clarke is often confronted by racism; in some parts of a diverse Black community, homophobia is present. In this awareness of the multi-determined nature of oppression for the Black woman, and more so for the Black lesbian, Clarke is in good company. Hull, Scott and Smith’s volume All the Women are White, all the Blacks are Men, But some of us are Brave: Black Women’s Studies (New York: The Feminist Press, 1982) addresses the double bind of Black women in its title and content.
And it is not an unusual Black lesbian experience to feel, in Audre Lorde’s terms, like a ‘Sister Outsider’ ( Black Unicorn 106) in every group of which one is a member. Clarke herself has explored ‘The Failure to Transform: Homophobia in the Black Community.’ ( Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology, Barbara Smith, ed., New York: Kitchen Table Woman of Color Press, 1983. 197-208), where she juxtaposes the proposed Family Protection Act ([1981, S. 1378, H. R. 3955]: ‘No federal funds may be made available under federal law for the purpose of advocating promoting or suggesting homosexuality, male or female as a lifestyle’), with a flyer distributed at a conference on ‘Self Determination’ billed as an ‘historic meeting on the Black Liberation Movement.’ ‘The practice of homosexuality’ this flyer stated, ‘is an accelerating threat to our survival as a people and as a nation (198). Since Clarke is interested in Black writers providing images not only of ‘who we are but also visions of who we can be’ ( Conditions : Five 159), it is not surprising that she believes: ‘The more homophobic we are as a people the further removed we are from any kind of revolution’ (‘The Failure to Transform’ 208). This awareness of the inter-connectedness of oppressions certainly undergirds what it is like to be living as a lesbian. In a number of the poems, including ‘urban gothic,’ ‘Indira,’ ‘Miami 1980,’ ‘sister of a famous artist brother,’ and ‘fall journal entry: 1983,’ Clarke explores the connectedness and separateness of oppressions based on color, on class, on being a Black woman rather than a Black man, or on being ‘Sharon / 25 / white.’ who ‘fell / jumped ‘ or was pushed / from her 4th floor window’ and who ‘died / holding it all together / on the outside’ (50). Clarke is clear that various oppressions share many of the same roots. She is also convinced that they are not all the same. That Clark says in her ‘futuristic fantasy’ that it is ‘all the same’ suggests a problem with some of her more explicitly political poems: they push unnecessarily hard to make the political point; they strive for the dramatic in ways that exclude a complicated analysis. While some of the poems would be effective as pieces read at a rally – the listeners would go away with a few lines that, because of their sound and clever grammatical shifts, are easy to remember – they don’t work as well on paper. The political, whether veiled or explicit, is appropriate for poetry and present in everything written whether ‘intentionally’ political or not, but when Clarke tries to make a clearly political point, she sometimes pushes too hardÂ… These are poems that do leave signs of triumph and signs of struggle. They are poems that illustrate Clarke’s contention that ‘Lesbianism is not solely an aesthetic nor solely a sexual issue, nor an issue to be treated solely by lesbians’ (‘Black, Brave and Women Too,’ Sinister Wisdom, 20, 1982). While Living as a Lesbian may have a special meaning for readers who are women, Black women and Black lesbians, this volume should be read by anyone who wonders what is it like to live as a lesbian. These poems ‘leave signs.’
~ Barbara A. Caruso, Obsidian II, Vol. 2, No. 1 (Spring 1987), pp. 94-100
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Details
| ISBN | 9780932379122 |
| Genre | Black Interest; Poetry |
| Publication Date | Apr-86 |
| Publisher | Firebrand Books |
| Format | Trade Paperback |
| No. of Pages | 96 |
| Language | English |
| Rating | Good |
| BookID | 7481 |
