Journey
Martha Courtot
…From the beginning, her poetry has expressed a deeply personal world where the lesbian collective consciousness sings and howls. Often Courtot’s poet persona is a woman in nature. In Journey, a collection of eleven deceptively simple poems, her body mimics the sand” (#5) and is “a bell / which rings and rings / and clangs against the Great Silence” (#7). She sees a bit of wood readied for carving and is reminded of a woman whose “future shapes / [are] crouching” (#8). She describes herself as looking like a mountain “whose birds have gone” (#10), and, in another poem, she writes, “I am the rain” (#11). In her close observation of nature’s moods Courtot resists romantic glorifi¬ cation while describing an inner world that is intricately linked with elements of nature. For instance, she speaks of a complicated relationship of separation and unity with another woman, saying, “I have been / both earthquake and desert” (#11). The mountains are like women sleeping after lovemaking, but they hold “terrible losses [in their] deepest clefts” (#6). The “underbelly of a gull [is] extravagance of ecstasy / for nine life times” (#3) but “when the wind blows / it is a dark sound” (#9). Courtot writes about bonds between women and about sexuality, and celebrates life….’ ~ Adrienne Lauby
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Details
| Genre | Poetry |
| Publication Date | 1977 |
| Publisher | Pearlchild |
| LoC Classification | PS3553.O863 .J7 1977 |
| Language | English |
| Rating | NotRated |
| Subject | Lesbians; Lesbians – Poetry |
| BookID | 15311 |
