Judy Grahn - Career

Career

Grahn was a member of the Gay Women’s Liberation Group, the first lesbian-feminist collective on the West Coast, founded in 1969. The group established the first women’s bookstore, A Woman’s Place, as well as the first all-woman press, the Woman’s Press Collective, which strived to devote "itself exclusively to work by lesbians disfranchised by race or class". Grahn’s poems circulated in “periodicals, performances, chapbooks, and by word of mouth, and were foundational documents of lesbian feminism.” Her work did not extend to a commercial audience until the late 1970s; however, it garnered a wide underground audience before 1975. Carl Morse and Joan Larkin cite Grahn’s work as “fueling the explosion of lesbian poetry that began in the 70s.”

Grahn's poetry is at times free verse, covering mainly feminist and lesbian subjects and themes. Her works stay true to her working-class roots, covering racism, sexism, classicism, and the struggles of being female and a lesbian. She uses plain language and what the Poetry Foundation describes as an "etymological curiosity that often eschews metaphor in favor of incantation." Grahn does not limit her work to just written poetry, but also collaborates with other artists such as singer-songwriter Anne Carol Mitchell and dancer and choreographer Anne Blethenthal.

Today, Grahn co-edits the online journal Metaformia, a journal about menstruation and women's culture.