Poetry in The Furies
The Furies, a lesbian/feminist monthly, began publishing in January 1972. A total of nine issues of the magazine were published until it ceased in 1973.
The Furies Collective in Washington DC, the center for the lesbian feminist group called by the same name (the Furies), is now on the National Register of Historic Places. PDFs of all issues (except one noted below) of The Furies newspaper are available online from RainbowHistory.org.
Certain issues can also be found at the Duke Rubenstein Library website at http://ibrary.duke.edu/digitalcollections/wlmpc_wlmms01033/
Article titled, "Have Fun So We Do Not Go Mad in Male Supremacist Heterosexual Amerika: Lesbian-Feminist Poetry in The Furies," appeared in Beltway Quarterly, March 2009, in the theme issue on Literary Organizations.
http://washingtonart.com/beltway/furies.html
Volume 1, January 1972
Four poems from Judy Grahn’s Edward the Dyke and Other Poems are included on page 7.
The poems are: “A History of Lesbianism,” “I’m not a girl,” “V. Detroit Annie, hitchhiking,” (one of "The Common Woman Poems") and “in the place where.”
Volume 2, February 1972
Seven poems from Rita Mae Brown’s The Hand That Rocks the Cradle are included on pages 12-13. The poems are: “The New Lost Feminist: A Triptych,” “For Lydia French,” “Sappho’s Reply,” “The Self Affirms Herself,” “ Canto Cantare Cantavi Cantatum,” “Song to a Handsome Woman,” and “The Bourgeois Questions.”
Other items of interest: Article by Helaine Harris, “Out of the O Zone,” opens with a poem by June Slavin title, “After Monterey Pop” (page 2.) Article by Jennifer Woodul on Emily Dickinson titled “Much Madness is Divinest Sense” (page 8.) Advertisement for Judy Grahn’s Edward the Dyke and Other Poems (page 23.)
Volume 1, issue 3, March-April 1972
No poetry.
Other item of interest: Text advertisement for Look at Women by Fran Winant, published by Violet Press including this advertisement “Violet Press is looking for material for a gay women’s anthology. Send your poems, songs, book reviews, essays, drawings and cartoons to them and include a stamped self-addressed return envelope.”
Volume 1, issue 4, May 1972
No poetry.
Correction to the poem “After Monterey Pop” on page 16.
Volume 1, issue 5, June-July 1972
Four poems from Pat Parker’s Child of Myself are included on page 4. The poems are: “A Moment Left Behind,” “With the sun,” “Let me come to you naked,” “Exodus (To my husbands, lovers).”
Other item of interest: “A Manifesto for the Feminist Artist” by Rita Mae Brown.
Volume 1, issue 6, August 1972
No poetry.
Other items of interest: Advertisement for Shameless Hussy Books including books by Alta, Susan Griffin, Paul Mariah, and Pat Parker, Advertisment for Diana Press, Lesbian Printshop, Printing, Tyepsetting, Layout, Graphics.
Volume 1, issue 7, Fall 1972
Poem by E. Sharon Gomillion on the cover, “We’re doing it in our schools. Poems on page 8 & 9: Susan Baker, “And Arab” and “Snapshots on Connecticut and K,” E. Sharon Gomillion, “My Love Called Me Today” and “Black Woman,” Merritt Wilson, “Diana, “I await, “Go from me lovely flower, and “A Preference,” Lee Lally, “Hurricanes, “For Meg at Clyde’s,” and “You Were Burying Us Before We Were Dead.”
Volume II, issue 1, February 1973
A Sonatina Followed by Another, by Gertrude Stein; edited by Fran Winant.
The introductory letter "To Our Readers" provides this information: The poem by Gertrude stein, pgs. 5, 6, was edited by Fran Winant. This is what Fran wrote to us about her editing: "My method was to put togetehr the sentences and paragraphs I felt were most revealing of the main ideas in the poem. . .I left out a lot of what I felt was Stein talking to herself, making personal references which had little or no meaning for anyone else. I felt that she was upset by the idea of talking about her lesbianism and tried to hide her subject by talking about irrelevant or obscure things. In orther words, I tried to extract the poem-within-the-poem. . . .
I find that, especially when read out loud, Stein's poetry has a magic quality, a feeling of giving off meaning beyond what words can say. I tried the poem on two audiences, one straight and one gay. The straights sat like sticks as if they didn't hear a word. The gay women laughed, cheered and generally exploded at every line. I feel this poem is part of gay women's culture, that even Stein tried to hide from us, and should be given back to gay women. . "
She Who, poetry by Judy Grahn, Graphics by Nancy Myron. Poems in this dossier include "She Who," "A Geology Lesson," "Slowly: A Plainsong from an Older Woman to a Younger Woman," and "The Woman Whose Head is On Fire."
"Sister of Mine," poem by E. Sharon Gomillion.
Other Items of Interest: Advertisement for These Days by Lee Lally, printed for Some of Us Press by Diana Press, advertisement for Amazon Quarterly, The Lesbian Tide, Diana Press's 1973 Women's Calendar, Diana Press, Lavender Woman (The Lesbian Paper of Chicago), Libera, Songs to a Handsome Woman by Rita Mae Brown, printed and distributed by Diana Press, The Gay Blade, and Whole Woman.
Volume II, issue 2
Journeys on the Living, poems by Linda Koolish: “My Neighbor is Thirty-Three” and “Conversation with my Mother” (page 3.) From Eating Artichokes by Willyce Kim, “Poem for Zahava,” “Eating artichokes,” and “The next woman” (page 4.)
New York Poems, poems by Lee Lally (page 8-11), “Time Square,” “New York Will Break Your Heart, Baby,” “W. 139th & Broadway,” Stop Light E 4th & 1st Avenue,” “234 E. 4th Street, “7th Ave. Broadway Local,” “East Village-Thompson St & E. 3rd St.” “Thompson Square and 7th Street,” Avenue B/E. 5th & 6th St.,” “Moon Poem,” “43rd St. between 7th and 8th Avenue,” “It is smooth,” and “Avenue of the Americas.”
Volume II, issue 3 Final Issue
Prose poem, "unnatural woman," by Diane O'Flynn.
"Oranges at Wandegeya" by Jay Williams.
"R St." by Keegan.