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Elly Bulkin and Joan Larkin are the editors of a new anthology called Lesbian Poetry, published by Persephone Press, Inc. Joan and Elly also edited an earlier anthology called Amazon Poetry. Elly has been one of the editors of Conditions, a magazine of writing by women with an emphasis on writing by lesbians, since its beginning. She has worked at the Women's Center of Brooklyn College, has taught English and women's studies at the college level, and has written for feminist and straight teaching magazines about teaching lesbian poetry and other topics. She lives in Brooklyn with her lover and their ten year old daughter, Anna.
Joan Larkin is a poet. A collection of her poems, Housework, was published by Out and Out Books (1975), a women's independent publishing company which she helped found. Since 1969, she has taught writing at Brooklyn College, and has also taught at women's writing programs and workshops around the country. Joan grew up near Boston and has a daughter, Kate.
I spoke with Elly and Joan when they were in Boston for the memorable poetry reading which Persephone Press, Inc., held to publicize their book. (An article on this reading appeared in GCN, Vol. 8, No. 43.)
MT: How did you pick the people to be in the anthology? Are they all living poets?
JL: They are all alive. The oldest is Elsa Gidlow, who is 83. Our initial framework was that we would publish living lesbian poets in English. We discussed other possibilities, but we had to limit ourselves somehow.
EB: It's also basically a book of Americans, and a book of people who have been published already. There are about 15 poems which had not appeared elsewhere. We primarily looked through periodicals for material. But we also contacted people, and so we have poems that hadn't already been published.
MT: Did anyone turn you down?
EB: We did get turned down by some people. One poet who was in Amazon Poetry said she didn't want to be in this because she objected to the word "lesbian" in the title.
JL: With some people it seems to be, you can do what you want but do you have to shout it from the rooftops? I want to...