Imaginative Women - Exploration Blog of Lesbian Fiction & Lesbian Drama

Eshne's Blog: From Windows Live to WordPress

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 21:07:27 GMT

Hi there,
If you're interested in reading my blog I've now moved on to WordPress - so come find me at my new home.
http://imaginativewomen.wordpress.com

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Emmeline Pankhurst: Freedom or Death Speech

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 22:46:40 GMT

I've recently become interested in the subject of suffrage and the inspiring Emmeline Pankhurst. Apparently she was a word smith extraordinaire and roused huge numbers of both men and women to action against injustice. After some searching I found this transcript of a speech called Freedom or Death Emmeline Pankhurst delivered in 1913 and I had to share - it really blew me away. (It's quite a long section of text so you can read the original Freedom or Death speech here).

Freedom or Death
This speech was delivered in Hartford, Connecticut on November 13 1913
Emmeline Pankhurst

I do not come here as an advocate, because whatever position the suffrage movement may occupy in the United States of America, in England it has passed beyond the realm of advocacy and it has entered into the sphere of practical politics. It has become the subject of revolution and civil war, and so tonight I am not here to advocate woman suffrage. American suffragists can do that very well for themselves.

I am here as a soldier who has temporarily left the field of battle in order to explain - it seems strange it should have to be explained - what civil war is like when civil war is waged by women. I am not only here as a soldier temporarily absent from the field at battle; I am here - and that, I think, is the strangest part of my coming - I am here as a person who, according to the law courts of my country, it has been decided, is of no value to the community at all; and I am adjudged because of my life to be a dangerous person, under sentence of penal servitude in a convict prison.

It is not at all difficult if revolutionaries come to you from Russia, if they come to you from China, or from any other part of the world, if they are men. But since I am a woman it is necessary to explain why women have adopted revolutionary methods in order to win the rights of citizenship. We women, in trying to make our case clear, always have to make as part of our argument, and urge upon men in our audience the fact - a very simple fact - that women are human beings.

Suppose the men of Hartford had a grievance, and they laid that grievance before their legislature, and the legislature obstinately refused to listen to them, or to remove their grievance, what would be the proper and the constitutional and the practical way of getting their grievance removed? Well, it is perfectly obvious at the next general election the men of Hartford would turn out that legislature and elect a new one.

But let the men of Hartford imagine that they were not in the position of being voters at all, that they were governed without their consent being obtained, that the legislature turned an absolutely deaf ear to their demands, what would the men of Hartford do then? They couldn't vote the legislature out. They would have to choose; they would have to make a choice of two evils: they would either have to submit indefinitely to an unjust state of affairs, or they would have to rise up and adopt some of the antiquated means by which men in the past got their grievances remedied.

Your forefathers decided that they must have representation for taxation, many, many years ago. When they felt they couldn't wait any longer, when they laid all the arguments before an obstinate British government that they could think of, and when their arguments were absolutely disregarded, when every other means had failed, they began by the tea party at Boston, and they went on until they had won the independence of the United States of America.

It is about eight years since the word militant was first used to describe what we were doing. It was not militant at all, except that it provoked militancy on the part of those who were opposed to it. When women asked questions in political meetings and failed to get answers, they were not doing anything militant. In Great Britain it is a custom, a time-honoured one, to ask questions of candidates for parliament and ask questions of members of the government. No man was ever put out of a public meeting for asking a question. The first people who were put out of a political meeting for asking questions, were women; they were brutally ill-used; they found themselves in jail before 24 hours had expired.

We were called militant, and we were quite willing to accept the name. We were determined to press this question of the enfranchisement of women to the point where we were no longer to be ignored by the politicians.

You have two babies very hungry and wanting to be fed. One baby is a patient baby, and waits indefinitely until its mother is ready to feed it. The other baby is an impatient baby and cries lustily, screams and kicks and makes everybody unpleasant until it is fed. Well, we know perfectly well which baby is attended to first. That is the whole history of politics. You have to make more noise than anybody else, you have to make yourself more obtrusive than anybody else, you have to fill all the papers more than anybody else, in fact you have to be there all the time and see that they do not snow you under.

When you have warfare things happen; people suffer; the noncombatants suffer as well as the combatants. And so it happens in civil war. When your forefathers threw the tea into Boston Harbour, a good many women had to go without their tea. It has always seemed to me an extraordinary thing that you did not follow it up by throwing the whiskey overboard; you sacrificed the women; and there is a good deal of warfare for which men take a great deal of glorification which has involved more practical sacrifice on women than it has on any man. It always has been so. The grievances of those who have got power, the influence of those who have got power commands a great deal of attention; but the wrongs and the grievances of those people who have no power at all are apt to be absolutely ignored. That is the history of humanity right from the beginning.

Well, in our civil war people have suffered, but you cannot make omelettes without breaking eggs; you cannot have civil war without damage to something. The great thing is to see that no more damage is done than is absolutely necessary, that you do just as much as will arouse enough feeling to bring about peace, to bring about an honourable peace for the combatants; and that is what we have been doing.

We entirely prevented stockbrokers in London from telegraphing to stockbrokers in Glasgow and vice versa: for one whole day telegraphic communication was entirely stopped. I am not going to tell you how it was done. I am not going to tell you how the women got to the mains and cut the wires; but it was done. It was done, and it was proved to the authorities that weak women, suffrage women, as we are supposed to be, had enough ingenuity to create a situation of that kind. Now, I ask you, if women can do that, is there any limit to what we can do except the limit we put upon ourselves?

If you are dealing with an industrial revolution, if you get the men and women of one class rising up against the men and women of another class, you can locate the difficulty; if there is a great industrial strike, you know exactly where the violence is and how the warfare is going to be waged; but in our war against the government you can't locate it. We wear no mark; we belong to every class; we permeate every class of the community from the highest to the lowest; and so you see in the woman's civil war the dear men of my country are discovering it is absolutely impossible to deal with it: you cannot locate it, and you cannot stop it.

"Put them in prison," they said, "that will stop it." But it didn't stop it at all: instead of the women giving it up, more women did it, and more and more and more women did it until there were 300 women at a time, who had not broken a single law, only "made a nuisance of themselves" as the politicians say.

Then they began to legislate. The British government has passed more stringent laws to deal with this agitation than it ever found necessary during all the history of political agitation in my country. They were able to deal with the revolutionaries of the Chartists' time; they were able to deal with the trades union agitation; they were able to deal with the revolutionaries later on when the Reform Acts were passed: but the ordinary law has not sufficed to curb insurgent women. They had to dip back into the middle ages to find a means of repressing the women in revolt.

They have said to us, government rests upon force, the women haven't force, so they must submit. Well, we are showing them that government does not rest upon force at all: it rests upon consent. As long as women consent to be unjustly governed, they can be, but directly women say: "We withhold our consent, we will not be governed any longer so long as that government is unjust." Not by the forces of civil war can you govern the very weakest woman. You can kill that woman, but she escapes you then; you cannot govern her. No power on earth can govern a human being, however feeble, who withholds his or her consent.

When they put us in prison at first, simply for taking petitions, we submitted; we allowed them to dress us in prison clothes; we allowed them to put us in solitary confinement; we allowed them to put us amongst the most degraded of criminals; we learned of some of the appalling evils of our so-called civilisation that we could not have learned in any other way. It was valuable experience, and we were glad to get it.

I have seen men smile when they heard the words "hunger strike", and yet I think there are very few men today who would be prepared to adopt a "hunger strike" for any cause. It is only people who feel an intolerable sense of oppression who would adopt a means of that kind. It means you refuse food until you are at death's door, and then the authorities have to choose between letting you die, and letting you go; and then they let the women go.

Now, that went on so long that the government felt that they were unable to cope. It was [then] that, to the shame of the British government, they set the example to authorities all over the world of feeding sane, resisting human beings by force. There may be doctors in this meeting: if so, they know it is one thing to feed by force an insane person; but it is quite another thing to feed a sane, resisting human being who resists with every nerve and with every fibre of her body the indignity and the outrage of forcible feeding. Now, that was done in England, and the government thought they had crushed us. But they found that it did not quell the agitation, that more and more women came in and even passed that terrible ordeal, and they were obliged to let them go.

Then came the legislation - the "Cat and Mouse Act". The home secretary said: "Give me the power to let these women go when they are at death's door, and leave them at liberty under license until they have recovered their health again and then bring them back." It was passed to repress the agitation, to make the women yield - because that is what it has really come to, ladies and gentlemen. It has come to a battle between the women and the government as to who shall yield first, whether they will yield and give us the vote, or whether we will give up our agitation.

Well, they little know what women are. Women are very slow to rouse, but once they are aroused, once they are determined, nothing on earth and nothing in heaven will make women give way; it is impossible. And so this "Cat and Mouse Act" which is being used against women today has failed. There are women lying at death's door, recovering enough strength to undergo operations who have not given in and won't give in, and who will be prepared, as soon as they get up from their sick beds, to go on as before. There are women who are being carried from their sick beds on stretchers into meetings. They are too weak to speak, but they go amongst their fellow workers just to show that their spirits are unquenched, and that their spirit is alive, and they mean to go on as long as life lasts.

Now, I want to say to you who think women cannot succeed, we have brought the government of England to this position, that it has to face this alternative: either women are to be killed or women are to have the vote. I ask American men in this meeting, what would you say if in your state you were faced with that alternative, that you must either kill them or give them their citizenship? Well, there is only one answer to that alternative, there is only one way out - you must give those women the vote.

You won your freedom in America when you had the revolution, by bloodshed, by sacrificing human life. You won the civil war by the sacrifice of human life when you decided to emancipate the negro. You have left it to women in your land, the men of all civilised countries have left it to women, to work out their own salvation. That is the way in which we women of England are doing. Human life for us is sacred, but we say if any life is to be sacrificed it shall be ours; we won't do it ourselves, but we will put the enemy in the position where they will have to choose between giving us freedom or giving us death.

So here am I. I come in the intervals of prison appearance. I come after having been four times imprisoned under the "Cat and Mouse Act", probably going back to be rearrested as soon as I set my foot on British soil. I come to ask you to help to win this fight. If we win it, this hardest of all fights, then, to be sure, in the future it is going to be made easier for women all over the world to win their fight when their time comes.

Emmeline Pankhurst biography

Interview with Jeanette Winterson: happy or normal?

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 22:01:23 GMT

I've just come across a unique blog called Le chateau de vent by Madame Finistère that has some eye-opening posts. I couldn't resist stealing part one of an inspiring Jeanette Winterson interview she'd found - you can view parts 2 to 5 on her why be happy when you can be normal post. I listened to another Jeanette Winterson interview via a BBC World Service podcast earlier this year, and apparently her adopted mother had a heart attack and died whilst watching the TV sex scene of Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit! Can you imagine...

Why is an older woman so sexy? Thoughts about Lena Headey

Sun, 17 Feb 2008 21:22:22 GMT

Lean Headey is six years older than me (making her an older woman) and I absolutely adore her. Obviously her beautiful features and exquisite voice are wonderful tools of seduction, but to me the ultimate reason she's sexy is because she is a woman with a past.

Lena Headey made her film debut at 19 in Waterland and has had an acting career lasting 15 years to date that has taken her to a multitude of countries; She has been engaged, had a nine year relationship and apparently has a tattoo saying "Jason" in Thai. Now that woman is going to have some stories!

There is something incredibly sexy about a woman who is confident in her own skin, and who conceals a mine of incidences and emotions. Physical attraction can be the initial boost but a woman with knowledge and a whole host of anecdotes up her sleeve can be endlessly alluring.

When I was in my early twenties my heart had never been properly stretched - I was looking for someone else to bring every thing to the relationship table. Then along came an older woman who magnetised me with her self-assurance, reeled me in with her tales from the past and teased at my innocence with her experience. It was delicious!

Maybe the reason Lena Headey seems to become more and more appealing is because she has eased in to her many layers of self - she is happy playing straight or gay characters, feminine or rough action chicks aka Sarah in the The Sarah Connor Chronicles.   She is not afraid to experiment and let life constantly evolve by consciously stretching herself, choosing to play disparate characters with very different motivations. (Can you tell I have an embarrassing style crush?). If you're not familiar with the talented Lena Headey here is a taste of her in action as Sarah Connor.

Another one of my older woman crushes is Sarah Parish, an English actress who makes my gaydar twitch.

Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed my tribute to Lena Headey and I promise not to make her the sole subject of a post ever again. I just needed to get it out of my system!

Let me know who your older women crushes are.

Who is the man in your lesbian relationship?

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 23:27:34 GMT

When my straight friends began to feel comfortable quizzing me about my relationship, the same question kept coming up again and again. So, who is the man and who is the woman? Each time it was asked I tried to quash the desire to roll my eyes and shout at the top of my voice, 'What do you mean who is the man? There is no man! We are both women you fool!'

The reason I resisted acting on that urge (other than not wanting to coming across as a rude wench) and continue to resist it, is because it was a question I wondered once myself. The first time I attempted to date a woman I just couldn't deal with the lack of clarity. Who was the seducer? Who was the one that made things happen and led the action? We were both feminine, so there were no physical clues. I only had straight relationships as a reference point, and suddenly I found myself without a set of rules to follow (even though I had been blissfully unaware of the rules whilst inhabiting a straight world.) I panicked!

It took me quite a while to realise that the lack of rules could be liberating rather than confusing - long enough for that tentative relationship to crash and burn :) Not having to adhere to convention is one of the things I have come to love about being gay. You can make your relationship what you want it to be without having to pay tribute to stereotyped roles. You can let the partnership grow organically and let your own dynamics guide how you interact with eachother, how you support one another. Saying that, I have found it can still get a little muddled.

My partner and I were friends before we were lovers, and sometimes that friendship can dominate the relationship to the point where it almost pushes out the romance. Maybe it's because both of us can be the seducer when we want to be, and both the seduced - the roles are fluid and constantly changing - that if we're not careful both can end up wanting to be seduced at the same time!

Thinking about female relationships on screen there is generally one woman who does the chasing. For example Bette chases Tina in the L word (until season 5!); Annabelle seduces Simone in Loving Annabelle. But then you also have the partnerships where the roles aren't quite as clear. Does Luce pursue Rachel in Imagine Me & You or does she simply make her desire transparent? Who finally ends up being the seductress in It's in the Water - is it Grace or Alex or both? Hmmm. I'm confused all over again!

I'd be interested to know what you think, so if you feel like sharing drop me a comment.

ps. Thanks to Jen for inspiring this post with her taking the lead anecdote.

My Coming Out Story

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 20:25:44 GMT

I broke a silence and fell, a child, into a foreign game.

It all began with the offer of a baguette, half eaten and wilting in the stagnant heat. The days had been long. The sun seemed to rise high into the sky, then rest, for hour, after hour, after hour, and I would find myself wishing for the cooling shadows of night to slide across the world and swallow me up in their midnight embrace.
    For five months I had casually crossed the boundaries of the world as only westerners can do. New Zealand, Australia, now Bali, soon Malaysia. I had marvelled at snow topped mountains. I had gaped open mouthed at the vast receding Australian horizon. But it was too much. Too much. My eyes clouded. A professional sightseer, as the days passed I felt myself being squashed tighter and tighter into a branded box, only capable of uttering inane slogans - the set script of a tourist.
    So it all began with the offer of...or was it before then? Was it in fact weeks before, on those long and dusty bus rides that the idea took seed? Was it when thoughts were allowed free reign and the censor within retired and took off his respective hat? A self fulfilling prophecy then, that took shape, faltered, never quite knew how to end.
    It was a night of cooling shadows. Soft breezes rippled through the creases of air. Lights flashed in the streets below and motorcycles whined as the midnight sky dropped her petticoats and shrouded us in stars. I believe it was then that Time grabbed me by the hand and pulled me in a crazy sprint through the light of day, the dark of night.
    Trying to visualise her now is like attempting to draw all the colours of a rainbow to a single point. Shards of emerald green give way to flashing yellows, swinging pinks to an ocean of azure blue: a beacon in a vast audience of people lost at sea. Navigating her way through life, those she touched grew like flowers tasting their first heady mix of morning dew. Least that’s how it seemed.
    She was striking. Quietly striking. Striking, because to know her was to feel winded, knocked down, awoken. Quietly, because it didn’t happen quite at once but covertly while the wind paused for breath and the sheets billowed against her porcelain skin.

Time was a witness as I launched my marble and struck her soundlessly in the chest. A strange absence settled where the obstruction had lodged - tongue loosened, jaw relaxed. Once begun confessions spilled from my lips, bubbling up like a spirited brook. Even then I could feel another confession building…but the music had begun. I had taken the first step and allowed the music to take control. The steps were unknown, the moves unpractice d, yet somehow my patched attempt succeeded and the two of us spun on to the dance floor, laughing, turning, eyes glittering, oblivious to the audience we knew would never see Us (for people see what they want to see).
    As those lips pulled away I fell into a deep consciousness. Though in darkness a bright sunshine burst into my life, and with eyes closed I let the flickering shadows play beautifully across my face…and let the feeling linger on.

© Eshne Knight 2008

Where is the lesbian on the family tree?

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 20:42:32 GMT

Last night I visited my Grandparents and my Grandad talked me through his family tree. He's Irish so it's quite an extensive one...!

It started out with my Great Great Great Grandparents back in the 1800s and snaked all the way down to 2004. What shocked me was the number of my relatives who either immigrated to America, or lived there for several years in their early twenties before returning home. My Great Grandmother sailed to Chicago when she was 18 and only returned to Ireland when she had enough money for her dowry five years later - more on that in a moment. Some of them who settled never came home again because of the poverty they lived in.

As I looked down the different tracks, calculating how old the sons and daughters were when they got married, when they had their first child, I began to wonder if any of my ancestors had been gay. And it made me sad to realise there was no way I could find out. All I could do was wonder about the sons who never married or the women who became nuns. Did they remain unmarried because they loved another of their own sex? Were they really dedicated to God or in need for the company of all men/all women? Were any of the married women RSGs?

Now that marriage is legal for same-sex couples I wonder if any of us will feature on the family trees of the future. Finally our relationships can be recognised by a marriage date; Children can be born into the world with two female parents. Have you been able to identify any gay men or women in your ancestry?

Back on to the point about saving money for a dowry, in the Irish farming community a woman could only marry into another farming family if she had a sufficient amount of money to trade for her place as a wife - you either had to earn the money yourself, or if you had a brother and he married, his wife's dowry would become yours. So in some cases, a woman could only marry once her brother found himself a suitable wife. How scary is that! We really have come a long way since then......

I'll leave you with that thought.

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Watching TV made me realise I was gay

Thu, 24 Jan 2008 00:06:17 GMT

Help! I've just lost another hour of my life to YouTube. How does that happen? All I planned to do was look up a clip from ER and I got completely sucked in to reliving the whole drama between Dr Weaver/Kerry and Kim (Laura Innes and Elizabeth Mitchell). Do you know it? If not take a look at the video clip below.

I wanted to track down a few scenes of the romance because it was whilst watching the relationship unfold on my TV I thought, Sh*t I think I might be gay. I say first time, because it took quite a few more moments like that before I fully embraced my love of women. (So I can't honestly say that Elizabeth Mitchell turned me to the dark side... as much as I wish I could.)

What got me thinking about Kerry and Kim in the first place was a post on the Awakenings blog of The Recovering Straight Girls Twelve Steps to Becoming a Lesbian. I agree with almost every point on the list, although there is one very important one missing. Introducing point number thirteen..

13. We have searched the internet far and wide for lesbian films, lesbian tv shows, books with gay women and poems about sapphic love. And once we have watched all the bad ones, (wondered why Lost and Delirious is so melodramatic, wished there was more sex in Imagine Me & You), read the okay ones, cringed at the awful ones, and fully saturated ourselves with YouTube clips we finally admit to ourselves that we might like to go out into the world and try some sapphic love for real.

Do you agree? Should number 13 make it on to the list? :)

In case you're interested here are some other defining media moments, in no particular order:

Pausing the video when Sharon Stone uncrosses her legs in Basic Instinct.
Being disappointed when Keira Knightly wasn't gay in Bend it Like Beckham.
Loving Maura Tierney in a leather jacket.
Feeling more than intrigued when Anna Friel kissed her best friend in Brookside.

I want to compile a list of defining TV moments so if you feel like sharing, please add yours by commenting on this post.

Cheers,
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Fictionalise lesbian women - why?

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 23:12:32 GMT

What makes us want to fictionalise gay characters? Why is it so important that lesbians are given space to be real people and not just two-dimensional personalities that are defined by their sexual preference?

To me it's really important that people I relate to in real life are represented in the films I watch and the books that I read. I want to feel like I'm not the only one. Other people are struggling with the same kind of decisions that I am. Do I say I'm gay and therefore condemn myself to a relationship where children are not a given? Do I out myself at work and risk people only seeing my sexuality, rather than the person that I am as a whole? These are just some of the questions I ask myself, and I find comfort knowing there are other women wrestling with the same kinds of conflicts.

I don't know if I'm unusual but I do not have a large gay circle. I've been out to my core group of friends for about five years and I have one good lesbian friend. All my other friends are straight. I went to a Catholic school where being gay was a sin, my university was a very main-stream place, and it wasn't until I went travelling in my early twenties that I managed to meet some gay women - outside of my limiting social circles. Since that time I've struggled to broaden out my friendships. I don't want to collect gay friends simply because they are gay. I want to form a connection with people that goes beyond and yet includes their sexuality. And that can be hard, especially when you're living in surburbia.

Writing, films, tv or whatever the medium may be that translates a life into a story that resonates with my own is endlessly satisfying. Maybe it is a symptom of my isolation. I'm looking for something I cannot have in real life. I want to submerge myself in a life I'd love to lead, live vicariously without having to deal with the fall out. Fiction allows that. It enables a leap from the mundane into the dream world.

Sometimes I think we need fiction as a way of imaging how lives could be before anyone finds the courage to live that actual life. The fiction is a bit like a prototype or a test that you play around with in your mind before making it into something real. So before you commit yourself to a life with a woman you sketch out that life in your mind's eye. Or if you're feeling weak you picture yourself as a heroic warrior, and suddenly that's it, you become the thing you imagine. But it's the imagination part that has to come first.

I'll leave you with a quote that inspires me endlessly, though I still seek to live it.

"Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!" Goethe

Do you feel the same way I do? I'd love to hear from you.
x

Top 5 films better with lesbian leads

Tue, 08 Jan 2008 21:57:28 GMT

Here is my list of top 5 popular films that I think would be improved by having two females leads. Feel free to add your thoughts!



Four Weddings & A Funeral Although I have a soft spot for Hugh, I think Kate Winslet could do bumbling English lady rather well and Karina Lombard aka Marina from the L word would be a terribly sophisticated American girl with style.

When Harry Met Sally Instead of Harry you could have Lena Headey, and swap Meg Ryan with Natalie Portman! They are both intelligent ladies, I'm sure they would have some heated conversations - and I'd love to see Lena do her rendition of the fake orgasm scene.

Dirty Dancing I'm having trouble thinking about a good match for this. Susan Sarandon & Michelle Pfeiffer?hmm.. Actually it would have to be Jennifer Beals & a young Anna Friel.

Grease Olivia Newton-John glosses over John Travolta and falls for the lovely Gina Gershon.

The Graduate Ditch Anne Bancroft and Dustin Hoffman. Replace them with Abbey Lockhart (aka Maura Tierney) and Piper Perabo.

Adrienne Rich - Poet

Tue, 01 Jan 2008 19:22:56 GMT

Adrienne Rich (born May 16, 1929 in Baltimore, Maryland) is an America feminist, poet, teacher and writer. Her work covers a broad range of subjects, although I am most drawn to her writing about lesbian desire. I've included one of her poems below. As of 1999, Rich was living in Santa Cruz, California, with her partner, novelist, poet and academic Michelle Cliff. The two have been living together since 1976.

from Twenty-One Love Poems

I

Wherever in this city, screens flicker
with pornography, with science-fiction vampires,
victimized hirelings bending to the lash,
we also have to walk . . . if simply as we walk
through the rainsoaked garbage, the tabloid cruelties
of our own neighborhoods.
We need to grasp our lives inseperable
from those rancid dreams, that blurt of metal, those disgraces,
and the red begonia perilously flashing
from a tenement sill six stories high,
or the long-legged young girls playing ball
in the junior highschool playground.
No one has imagined us. We want to live like trees,
sycamores blazing through the sulfuric air,
dappled with scars, still exuberantly budding,
our animal passion rooted in the city.

II

I wake up in your bed. I know I have been dreaming.
Much earlier, the alarm broke us from each other,
you've been at your desk for hours. I know what I dreamed:
our friend the poet comes into my room
where I've been writing for days,
drafts, carbons, poems are scattered everywhere,
and I want to show her one poem
which is the poem of my life. But I hesitate,
and wake. You've kissed my hair
to wake me. I dreamed you were a poem,
I say, a poem I wanted to show someone . . .
and I laugh and fall dreaming again
of the desire to show you to everyone I love,
to move openly together
in the pull of gravity, which is not simple,
which carried the feathered grass a long way down the upbreathing air.

III

Since we're not young, weeks have to do time
for years of missing each other. Yet only this odd warp
in time tells me we're not young.
Did I ever walk the morning streets at twenty,
my limbs streaming with a purer joy?
did I lean from any window over the city
listening for the future
as I listened here with nerves tuned for your ring?
And you, you move toward me with the same tempo.
Your eyes are everlasting, the green spark
of the blue-eyed grass of early summer,
the green-blue wild cress washed by the spring.
At twenty, yes: we thought we'd live forever.
At forty-five, I want to know even our limits.
I touch you knowing we weren't born tomorrow,
and somehow, each of us will help the other live,
and somewhere, each of us must help the other die.

A glimpse of Suffragette courage

Fri, 28 Dec 2007 00:18:47 GMT

An imagined scene from the British Suffragette movement

The wire handle bit into her hand, the stink of paraffin filled her nostrils. She was glad of the times she had ferried the milk urns at home, aware her strength had made her a chosen one. The night had shrowded them in her charcoal petticoats, keeping the damp autumn air close. Party to their secret cause, the moon had remained hidden behind a blanket of cloud as they scurried from field to field, making their way from Otley into Sevenoaks.
    Suddenly all was alight and Eshne picked out a scattered line of dresses snaking across the countryside. Caelan flattened her arms out parallel to the horizon and the dresses sunk to the ground, disappearing instantly into the gloom.
    A motor car screeched up the lane, abruptly slowed, then crawled deliberately along the track. Eshne lay close to the earth, attempting to blend seamlessly into the rugged contours, shielding the heavy case of paraffin by her side. As the car passed she let her breathing deepen but kept her eye trained on its course. It stopped 50 yards ahead dangerously near to Irene. She heard a door slam, hard shoes slapping against the road, then a tall figure in a hat appeared silhouetted against the car beams.
    Irene was poised to run her face turned toward a thick rash of scrubland her feet spread, limbs taut. If she ran now they’d all be exposed. Pressing her body into the wet ground Eshne dragged herself forward, inching desperately slowly towards Irene. A male voice called out “Who’s there?” Irene twitched. She pulled hard through the rugged grass ignoring the sharp flints that bit at her legs. “Irene!” she hissed as she grew nearer “Don’t move. He’ll see you. Don‘t move.” Even in the dark she could see the furrow of fear rutted across Irene’s forehead. The voice boomed out again across the plane, “I said who‘s there? Show yourself now or I‘ll release the dogs!” Irene bolted. “Irene!” Eshne scrambled forward and caught her round the ankles. “You’ll get us all killed. Be still you fool” she whispered urgently as Irene struggled to free herself. “Be still!” She threw herself on top of her, using the weight of her body to keep her pinned. “Shh. It’s okay. It’s okay” she murmered.

© Eshne Knight 2007

A moment of longing

Fri, 28 Dec 2007 00:14:06 GMT

All she wanted was to hold the hand that lay by her side. The hand that fluttered briefly into the air but always landed back by the crest of her right knee. She imagined what it would feel like to cradle that delicate dove in her fingers. Wondered whether the pricklings of her life would rush to the hand as it began its soft crawl forwards; felt herself to be just a hand. A hand about to join with that other perfect hand, (and make love with the touches of smooth fingertips, the sliding cup of palm, the fragile twisting wrist...)

Are letters old fashioned?

Thu, 27 Dec 2007 23:42:01 GMT

Ponderings about letters, emails and the acceleration of experience.

I met up with a friend today that I haven't seen for 6 months. She lives in China, though originally from the glamorous wilds of Gatwick Airport, Surrey, and it was one of many fleeting meetings in which we exchanged more fundamental truths about our lives than I do with any England bound friend. She told me about a male friend of hers whom she has not seen for 4 years but emails almost every day. She feels he knows her almost as well as her every day lover. Now they are to meet. Exchange pleasantries. Deal with the awkward silences or the natural rests in face to face meetings.

She thinks it will be strange. Is nervous about the meeting. Why, I asked? She feels it is something about having to expose herself on a tangible level that makes her feel vulnerable. Until now it has been virtual - the spawn of new technology, a relationship that can exist without physical meeting. In many ways it feels like a relationship that can only exist because of email, the technology of the era. But then surely the letter established this type of relationship long ago. For years people exchanged anecdotes about their present across the seas, never to see the person to whom they were writing.

Yet at the same time those letters would have taken months to have arrived. There would have been a delay between each other's presents...a lag between the day that each experienced and their re-telling of that experience. With email there is a delay of hours at most. Moments can be translated into words and re-experienced by their reader as soon as the scene can be captured in words. The immediacy of the interaction is speeded up substantially.

As humans I'm sure we have always wanted to share our experiences, whether for reasons of ego or companionship who knows. What is clear is that each of us can be the actor on the stage, and each confident a type of audience that reacts with shock or happiness at each twist of the tale. With the advent of email, blogging, the sharing of personal information, that stage is enhanced and the audience is attracted from many walks of life. Does that affect the story teller and the level of intimacy they are willing to develop with their unseeing, unknown audience? Does the exaggerated anonymity cause the individual to delve deeper into their psyche than every before? The lure of artificial privacy can dupe many a writer into feeling they are free, but one has only to look at the sorry fate of past so-called anonymous bloggers to determine that although the net of interest has been cast wide, so has curiosity, and the online detective has more powerful tools to hand than any ancestral Sherlock Holmes.

What are your experiences of sharing information online? Has it been a liberating experience, or one that you have come to regret?
x

In Search of Inspiring Lesbian Fiction & Film

Thu, 20 Dec 2007 10:32:25 GMT

Hello ladies of a creative and women loving bent,

I've decided to start writing this blog because I've been surfing the internet in search of inspiring lesbian fiction, film & drama and I keep coming to a dead end.

Either it doesn't exist, I'm not very good at finding it or it is so deeply buried within the tangle of web pages that it can never be found!

Two pairs of eyes are better than one, so I want to enlist the help of anyone who is interested in uncovering believable and engaging lesbian or bi characters.

I want to invite people to contribute and turn this blog into a place where women can find story lines that they relate to, and characters who can help them deal with the good and bad stuff of being gay or bisexual. Even if you can only spare a second to add in a link, or comment on an existing list your effort would be much appreciated!

Cheers!
K

P.S. When I was conducting my search I came across a blog that was much purer than any fiction Awakenings: Navigating the spaces between in and out
I don't know the identity of this lone woman, but she writes beautifully about her quest to be true to herself, and I wish her luck.

Blog list: Blog list

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 21:44:26 GMT

Movie List: Movie List

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 22:58:14 GMT

Saving Face
A very cute Chinese-American lesbian falls in love with a pretty lady. She struggles to step out in public with her girl, fearing a negative response from her friends and family. Sensitive and endearing.
Imagine Me & You
Classic English Rom-Com with a lesbian twist. Married girl (Piper Perabo) falls for sexy gay florist (Lena Headey). The film skirts over the deep issues, choosing to take a light hearted look at complicated love. We'll forgive them though as the two girls exude chemistry.
But I'm a Cheerleader
This film makes me smirk, as my Mum's first reaction to my coming out story was to suggest 10 sessions of counselling :) Quirky look at attitudes towards gay children, parents' approach and the hilarious consequences of enforced reform.
Kissing Jessica Stein
Flirty lighthearted comedy about a girl called Jessica Stein who is a ditsy straight girl stuck in a rut - that is until her curiosity leads her to start dating a woman. Entertaining take on romance, sexuality and relationships.
It's In The Water
I confess I haven't watched all of this film - just about 40 minutes via You Tube clips. In terms of the sets and clothing the film looks old fashioned and basic (which I think might be part of the plan), but the women at the centre of the action are smart, intelligent women and make a convincing couple.
Tipping The Velvet - TV adaptation
An engaging drama set in 1890s England about an oyster girl's journey into the arms of women with some showbiz, prostitution and destitution along the way. It's an interesting version of a lesbian herstory, although it won't get you thinking too deeply.
Puccini For Beginners
Loving Annabelle

Custom List: Lesbian fiction

Fri, 22 Feb 2008 22:53:40 GMT

Lesbian fiction

The Night Watch
Set in 1940s London. Follows a set of characters through a series of difficult events, three of them gay. The novel is narrated in three chunks, in reverse chronological sequence. Full of realistic scenes, powerful descriptions - an interesting herstory.
Fingersmith
Fantastic plot, full of unexpected twists. Rich daughter falls in love with servant girl - set against a backdrop of 1800s London with country houses and sinister asylums.
Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit
This was Jeanette Winterson's first book and the one that launched her as a talented writer. It's mostly autobiographical, focusing on Jeanette's unusual childhood, eccentric religious mother, and the chaos that is generated by her sexuality. Very funny
Mouths of Babes - Stella Duffy
Affinity

Custom List: Lesbian Life

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 22:07:22 GMT

Lesbian Life

Custom List: Books for women

Mon, 28 Jan 2008 20:06:17 GMT

Books for women

Movie List: Funny lesbian clips from YouTube

Sun, 27 Jan 2008 00:52:03 GMT

Funny lesbian clips from YouTube

L word stars in Charlie's Angels Re-write
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Custom List: Lesbian/Bisexual Writers & Their Work

Wed, 02 Jan 2008 22:34:42 GMT

Lesbian/Bisexual Writers & Their Work

Adrienne Rich
American Poet and more

Custom List: Popular Romance Better With Lesbian Leads

Thu, 20 Dec 2007 23:45:39 GMT

Popular Romance Better With Lesbian Leads

Grease
Olivia Newton-John glosses over John Travolta and falls for the lovely Gina Gershon.
The Graduate
Ditch Anne Bancroft and Dustin Hoffman. Replace them with Abbey Lockhart (aka Maura Tierney) and Piper Perabo.
Dirty Dancing
I'm having trouble thinking about a good match for this. Susan Sarandon & Michelle Pfeiffer?hmm.. Actually it would have to be Jennifer Beals & a young Anna Friel.
When Harry Met Sally
Instead of Harry you could have Lena Headey, and swap Meg Ryan with Natalie Portman! They are both intelligent ladies, I'm sure they would have some heated conversations - and I'd love to see Lena do her rendition of the fake orgasm scene.
Four Weddings & A Funeral
Although I have a soft spot for Hugh, I think Kate Winslet could do bumbling English lady rather well and Karina Lombard aka Marina from the L word would be a terribly sophisticated American girl with style.

Music List: Music list

Thu, 20 Dec 2007 23:44:59 GMT

Scissor Sisters: Don't Feel Like Dancing
Scissor Sisters
This is just one of many Scissor Sister tunes that gets everyone up on the dancefloor. Their gigs are the most gay friendly nights I've ever been to, and Ana Matronic does Bi girls proud (even though she does get a bit down and dirty on stage).
KT Tunstall: Hold On
Drastic Fantastic
KT Tunstall is a legend. She writes clean lyrics, has a beautiful Scottish accent and a penchant for tom-boy style or cowboy boots. Yum.

Book List: Worst lesbian literature

Thu, 20 Dec 2007 23:16:53 GMT

Worst lesbian literature

Gerri Hill: One Summer Night
Girl has bad break up. Girl meets new hot woman. Girl pushes woman away. Hot woman does not give up. Girl says yes. Woman happy. Girl changes her mind. Woman sad. Woman sad. Girl says yes again. Then no. Then yes. Then no. They have sex. Fall in love. Yawn