Pat Parker (born Patricia Cooks; January 20, 1944 – June 17, 1989)[2] was an African American poet and activist. Both her poetry and her activism drew from her experiences as a Black lesbian feminist.[3][4] Her poetry spoke about her tough childhood growing up in poverty, dealing with sexual assault, and the murder of a sister.[5] At eighteen, Parker was in an abusive relationship and had a miscarriage after being pushed down a flight of stairs.[5] After two divorces, she came out as a lesbian, "embracing her sexuality" and said she was liberated and "knew no limits when it came to expressing the innermost parts of herself".[5]
Parker participated in political activism and had early involvement with the Black Panther Party and Black Women's Revolutionary Council, and formed the Women's Press Collective.[6] She participated in many forms of activism especially regarding gay and lesbian communities, domestic violence, reproductive rights, civil rights and anti-racism.[7] She released five poetry collections: Child of Myself (1972), Pit Stop (1975), Movement in Black (1978), Womanslaughter (1978), and Jonestown and Other Madness (1985).
Early life
Pat was born on January 20, 1944, in Houston, Texas, to Marie Louise (née Anderson) and Ernest Nathaniel Cooks.[4] Marie Louise worked as a domestic worker and Ernest retreaded tires.[8] She was the youngest of four daughters. The family lived first in the Third Ward and then moved to the Sunnyside neighborhood when Parker was four years old.[9]
Parker and Bullins separated after four years. She later said that her ex-husband was physically violent and that she was "scared to death".[12] She married Robert F. Parker, writer and publisher,[8][13] but decided that the "idea of marriage... wasn't working" for her.[12] She began to identify as a lesbian in the late 1960s, and, in a 1975 interview with Anita Cornwell stated: "after my first relationship with a woman, I knew where I was going."[12]
Career
Parker worked from 1978 to 1988 as the medical coordinator and executive director of the Oakland Feminist Women's Health Center.[14] In 1979 she toured with the "Varied Voices of Black Women", a group of poets and musicians that included Linda Tillery, Mary Watkins, and Gwen Avery.[15][16] She founded the Black Women's Revolutionary Council in 1980,[10][16] and she also contributed to the formation of the Women's Press Collective, as well as being involved in wide-ranging activism in gay and lesbian organizing.[10]
Pat Parker was asked by her father to take "the freedom train of education," Parker moved to Oakland California, in the early 1970s to pursue writing and potential opportunities for activist work.[17] Parker also participated in political activism and had early involvement with the Black Panther Party, Black Women's Revolutionary Council and formed the Women's Press Collective.[6] Parker participated in many forms of activism especially regarding gay and lesbian communities, domestic violence, and rights of people of color.[7]
Writing
Parker gave her first public poetry reading in 1963 in Oakland. In 1968, she began to read her poetry to women's groups at women's bookstores, coffeehouses and feminist events.[18]
Judy Grahn, a fellow poet and a personal friend, identifies Pat Parker's poetry as a part of the "continuing Black tradition of radical poetry".[19]
Cheryl Clarke, another poet and peer, identifies her as a "lead voice and caller" in the world of lesbian poetry.[20] Designed to confront both black and women's communities with, as Clarke notes, "the precariousness of being non-white, non-male, non-heterosexual in a racist, misogynist, homophobic, imperial culture".[21] Clarke believes that Parker articulates "a black lesbian-feminist perspective of love between women and the circumstances that prevent our intimacy and liberation".[21]
Parker and Audre Lorde first met in 1969 and continued to exchange letters and visits until Parker's death in 1989. Their collaboration inspired many, including lesbian-feminist blues/R&B singer Nedra Johnson, whose song "Where Will You Be?" has become something of a feminist anthem in the USA.[8]Audre Lorde and Pat Parker shared common themes within poetry they wrote as well. Audre Lorde's piece "The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action"[22] talks extensively about action through language, a similar concept seen in Pat Parker's "Where will you be".[23]
Womanslaughter
Parker's elder sister, Shirley Jones, was shot and killed by her husband. Parker wrote the autobiographical poem, Womanslaughter (1978), based on this event.[10]
In 2014, the small independent press Ra'av (Hebrew for Hunger) published a wide selection of Parker's work in Israel, translated into Hebrew by Yael "belly" Levi-Hazan, Yael (yali) Dekel, and Hani Kavdiel. [citation needed]
Death
Parker died on June 19, 1989, of breast cancer at the age 45 in Oakland, California.[10] The national lesbian-feminist community mourned her loss, and several things have been named after her, such as Pat Parker Place, a community center in Chicago. She was survived by her long-time partner, Marty Dunham, and her daughters Cassidy Brown and Anastasia Jean.[26]
Movement in Black: The Collected Poetry of Pat Parker, 1961–1978; includes work from Child of Myself and Pit Stop, foreword by Audre Lorde, introduction by Judy Grahn, Diana Press (Oakland, California), 1978, expanded edition, introduction by Cheryl Clarke, Firebrand Books (Ithaca, New York), 1999
^Pat Parker
Contemporary Black Biography, Volume 19. Gale Research, 1998. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale Group, 2008 (http://www.galenet.com/servlet/BioRC). Fee. Accessed December 27, 2008.
^Clarke, Cheryl. Movement in Black, 1989, Crossing Press, ISBN0-89594-113-9
^ abClarke, Cheryl. Review of Movement in Black in Conditions Six, Summer 1980, pp. 217–225.
^Lorde, Audre, "The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action"Archived December 4, 2018, at the Wayback Machine, Paper delivered at the Modern Language Association's "Lesbian and Literature Panel," Chicago, Illinois, December 28, 1977. First published in Sinister Wisdom 6 (1978), and The Cancer Journals (Spinsters' Ink, San Francisco, 1980).
^Parker, Pat, [://webpages.scu.edu/ftp/lgarber/courses/eng67F10texts/ParkerWhereWillYouBe.pdf "Where Will You Be?"]
^Russell, Diana E. H. "Report on the International Tribunal on Crimes against Women", Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, Vol. 2, No. 1, Spring 1977, pp. 1–6.
^"Stonewall 50". San Francisco Bay Times. April 3, 2019. Retrieved May 25, 2019.
Sources
McEwen, Christian, editor, Naming the Waves: Contemporary Lesbian Poetry, Virago (New York City), 1988.
Moraga, Cherríe, and Gloria Anzaldúa, This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, Women of Color Press, 1981.
Parker, Pat, Jonestown and Other Madness, Firebrand Books, 1985.
Parker, Pat, Movement in Black: The Collected Poetry of Pat Parker, 1961–1978, foreword by Audre Lorde, introduction by Judy Grahn, Diana Press (Oakland, California), 1978, expanded edition, introduction by Cheryl Clarke, Firebrand Books (Ithaca, New York), 1999.
Blain, Virginia, Patricia Clements, and Isobel Grundy. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1990: 833.
Oktenberg, Adrian. In Women's Review of Books (Wellesley, Massachusetts), April 1986: 17–19.
Ridinger, Robert B. Marks. "Pat Parker", in Gay & Lesbian Literature. Detroit, Michigan: St. James Press, 1994: 289–290.