Poems

by Rita Mae Brown

Finally, Rita Mae Brown’s two books of poems are back in print: Songs to a Handsome Woman and The Hand That Cradles the Rock, in one volume, with a new introduction by the author.

Rita Mae Brown holds a Ph.D. from The Institute for Policy Studies. She has been granted many honors including the America Award for the Best Variety Show on Television in 1982 by the Writers Guild of America. She admits that she continues to write poetry but has not had time to polish it. “Therefore it doesn’t get published. You wouldn’t send your child out naked would you? Neither will I.”

INCLUSION CRITERIA

Author Rita Mae Brown has often been referred to as a lesbian because of her well-known early novels  as well as her involvement with the radical feminist movement (she co-founded The Furies Collective in the 1970s). However, in interviews she frequently pushed back against being labeled a “lesbian writer” (and most other labels). In an interview with TIME, she said “I don’t believe in straight or gay. I really don’t. I think we’re all degrees of bisexual. There may be a few people on the extreme if it’s a bell curve who really truly are gay or really truly are straight. Because nobody had ever said these things and used their real name, I suddenly became the only lesbian in America. It was hysterical. It was a misnomer, but it’s okay. It was a fight worth fighting.”