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The Queer Stories of 'Cuse podcast series was created by the LGBTQ Resource Center at Syracuse University (SU), in collaboration with The SENSES Project, to curate an oral history archive telling queer stories in an authentic light. This series features interviews of past and present SU students, staff, faculty and community members of the Greater Syracuse area who are passionate about queer issues and advocacy work.
Special thanks to:
The SENSES Project Program Coordinator, Nick Piato
Director of SU LGBTQ Resource Center, Jorge Castillo
Associate Director of SU Office of Supportive Services, Amy Horan Messersmith
Co-hosts: Bushra Naqi, Rio Flores & Sebastian Callahan
Sebastian Callahan 0:01
Hello, my name is Sebastian Callahan and I'm a sophomore at Syracuse University and a research assistant at the LGBTQ Resource Center. I'm working to establish our first queer Syracuse oral history archive. A few of our goals for this project include amplifying marginalized voices that are often wrongfully spoken for or over. I'm pleased to be here with you. And I would like to extend all my gratitude to you for taking the time out of your schedule to participate in this interview. Please know that you may revoke your consent at any point during this during or after this interview. If you're feeling uncomfortable, or would like to take a break, please let me know, your safety and well being is of our utmost priority. And we definitely want to make that clear. Thank you so much, again, for taking the time to share your story with us. We greatly appreciate it. And without further ado, let's dive into some of these questions. Well, hi, mini bursts. It's great to be with you today. How are you doing?
Minnie Bruce Pratt 1:06
Doing good. Sebastian, I'm happy to be talking to you today. And I have to say I really appreciate your getting my name correct. A lot of people don't know to call me many Bruce, and you did it. So thank you. Well,
Sebastian Callahan 1:21
it's wonderful to have the two names together. In my opinion, actually, I think they sound great together. And I can't stop saying it honestly. So what are your pronouns? If you'd like to share?
Unknown Speaker 1:35
Yes, they’re definitely. She and her, I definitely identify and always have identified as a girl or a woman or female. But my hope all along, even when I didn't know how to articulate it was to live in a very gender fluid world.
Sebastian Callahan 2:01
Okay, and can you tell me where and when you were born?
Unknown Speaker 2:06
Yes. My hometown where I grew up, is Centerville, Alabama. I was born in Selma, because that was where the nearest hospital was. I was born in 1946. And the state of rural health care was limited then. And my mother needed extra care. So I was born in Selma. But that that was just because it was the nearest hospital and I cinnabar was my hometown, very small when I was born about 900 people.
Sebastian Callahan 2:43
And could you tell me about growing up near Selma during that interesting period of you know, the 40s 50s and 60s?
Unknown Speaker 2:53
Oh, gosh, you know, I have to limit what I say to you, because I could talk all day and all night. Yeah, well, what people I think just, you know, to give a framework for people to think about my life, what people have to remember is that it was segregation. It was legal, racist segregation, at that time in Alabama, and of course, through most of the US for that matter. But, you know, really, viciously so in Alabama, but because I was a young white girl, I didn't have any understanding of the wrongness of that. Until I got to be college age. And the reason I began to understand something about the wrongness was because there was the black civil black led civil rights movement that was being led out of Alabama. And, you know, I think now people know something of that history. Of course, when it was going on it was considered illegal and and unpatriotic. And you know, there was a lot of there was just endless daily propaganda against people simply trying to get the right to vote by people. You know, they had a legally it was their right to vote, since for black men since 1872, I think or 1870. And for women since 1920. But the power structure, the ruling, the white supremacist power structure, had managed to pass law after law after law after law that made it impossible for black people to vote. And and then If they persisted in trying to gain their right to vote, they were physically threatened and often killed. But I didn't know I didn't understand any of that until the movement brought it to light. And then it took me it's taken me the rest of my life to try to be faithful to those activists. I was not an activist when I was a teenager. Right? I mean, to give you to give people a concrete understanding, the cover of my senior, it was either my senior or my junior high school annual was a confederate flag. So that's, that's kind of where I was going. The main issue was racism. Doesn't mean there wasn't a lot of queerness going around. But that was not the top of the agenda. For the oppression. Now it is. You know, it's, it's, it's up there, the anti trans, anti queer, anti gay, along with racism. So there was a tremendous amount of repression of information. And I believed it. It's important for people to understand I didn't have alternate information. And then the civil rights movement. People well, they demonstrated in that, you know, they were, they were doing demonstrations, and they were doing actions, and they, those were being shown on television. But the narration was all white supremacist, because TV stations to the radio stations and so forth, were in the hands of the white supremacists. But But I saw people being attacked, and that was horrifying by the police me and by the Klan, they were newsreels, you know, on TV, and that was really the beginning of my understanding. terrible injustice.
Sebastian Callahan 7:28
Yeah, I can imagine that would definitely have a serious effect. So can you tell me about how you identify as a part of the LGBTQ+community?
Unknown Speaker 7:41
Yes, I'm, well, to connect that identification to my upbringing. The lack of information was the same around sexual issues and gender. Also, there was just no information, really. I mean, they're trying to put us back in that era by these laws about what cannot be discussed in this. I mean, they're really trying to take us back the white power structure, white, white supremacist, but so I didn't hear the word lesbian until I was about 14, maybe. And that was because of a cousin of mine came back from college. She had a a friend with her, and they were both very, they're both very tall and masculine women, but they were not queer identified, but they were being baited. They were being baited, that were roommates, and they were being baited as lesbians. And, and they were talking about it with their mother, who was my aunt, we were all standing around outside in the yard, probably the only place we could really be private, in the yard, and under the pecan tree, and they were talking to her and they said the word lesbian. And and I understood, oh. When you're out of the category, that category of traditional femininity, that's how you get baited. It may or may not be true, right? And then so that was 1961 or so maybe 1960s 61. And then I didn't really come into contact with queer communities until I was in. Well, that's not true. The best man at my wedding was a gay guy. He was a poet. We were in college in the university together. So there was a hidden life. Right? There was a there was a very in life, but there was not a social scene. He was A friend. You know, he did. He died later of AIDS.
Sebastian Callahan 10:09
I'm very sorry, about that
Unknown Speaker 10:49
I didn't find I didn't get into a community until I was in graduate school. And there was a women's liberation movement at the University of North Carolina. And of course, some of those people were lesbian. They were not all lesbian. So they had all all women parties, and people were dancing, and I saw women kissing, and it was like, Oh, my goodness. And I was married, I was married. And I had two children. You know, I was married, I married when I was 20. And I had two children. Like, right away, I went to graduate school, I had a job while I was in grad school, in the middle of my grad school education.
Sebastian Callahan 10:09
And yeah,
yeah, at this time about your, like, queerness and queer identity, and how did you go about dealing with that, and once you had a family?
I'm sure it wasn't easy.
Unknown Speaker 11:00
Well, wasn't easy. Yeah, it was not easy. Um, you know, as how connected for me with women's liberation and breaking with expectations of what it meant to be a woman. And then still married, my children were starting school, kindergarten in school, we moved to a different town, all this is happening in North Carolina, because that's where I was in grad school. And I met somebody who was the lesbian. And and that was very complicated, but I fell in love with her. And then there was a big, you know, mess, right word for it. It's a terrible, terrible, terrible big mess. And the end, the upshot of it was that my husband, and then my ex husband, took my children away from me. Because, you know, it was 1975. And in every state in the US, it was a felony offense for almost every state at that point, to be, to be queer. So when he threatened that I went to a lawyer in North Carolina in Raleigh, then she pulled the statute book and off the shelf, and she opened it up, and she read the sodomy statute, which is the crime against nature statute. Right. And it said, you know, she read all the penalties and all the things. I mean, it was, you know, you could be sentenced to not, you know, not less than two and or more than 20 years you Blabla, you know, it was, it was a felony offense was a felony offense, it was not a misdemeanor, you know, it was a felony, you went to people went to jail for it, mostly men went to jail for it, but some women, and it's but you know, I didn't go to jail, they just used it to take the children away from so the children were, you know, they were like seven and six. And that began many, many years of our struggling to stay in touch with each other. I was not given I was given very limited visiting rights. I was not allowed to see them, for instance, unless I was in the presence of either my mother or my aunt, or my ex husband. So I could either see them at his house, or I could travel to his house and get them and take them to my mother's house in Alabama. I was in North Carolina, he was in Kentucky and my mother and my aunt were in Alabama. Oh, wow. You can imagine what that might have been like, A lot of hours in the car driving. So the good news about that is we we stayed in touch in different kinds of ways. And kept the relationship and talked lots of conversations when we could have them and and also their father got really tired of being a single parent. And it took him about five years, but he did get tired of it and decided he would let me have them by myself. Okay, right. Yeah. And anyway, So now they are in their 50s. And they have children, I have five grandchildren, I see them all the time I see the children all the time when Leslie was alive, they came here. We had grandchildren with us. It's it's a good ending. It is part of what the struggle has been about. From the 1970s. Till today. It's beautiful. My life, my life mirrors that struggle, really, from from being a felon to being, you know, a beloved grandmother who, you know, the children are horrified the grandchildren when I say, you know, they took, you know, they took ransom and being away from me, they were like, what, what, how can that possibly be? They say, right. Yeah,
Sebastian Callahan 15:56
I mean, it's so beautiful.
Unknown Speaker 15:57
So So you know, it's a long it's a, it's a very, you will find that if you talk to anybody my age, you know, too long, complicated story, how we got to be. And we were everybody you talked to who's my age? My guess is? They were part of the struggle, right?
Sebastian Callahan 16:17
Yeah. I mean, for sure. A lot of people know your name, especially when I talk, or I've mentioned you before about how I might interview you. And of course, yeah, like Margaret Hemley. She reminds me a lot.
Unknown Speaker 16:30
Oh, yeah, Margaret, and she was definitely part of this struggle to boy, she fought tooth and nail within Syracuse.
Sebastian Callahan 16:39
I know, I wanted to hear a little bit more about that. But I don't think I could. Yeah, so Well, it's great that you look back at it with these, like, bright eyes. And you know, you're able to think about, like, it's beautiful that you look at your life as a mirror of the struggle and women's liberation like that. And like you're able to know, it's not just, you know, what people might have thought then, like an even forcing you in that moment to even think like probably crazy things like, oh, I shouldn't come out like I shouldn't, you know, it's crazy that they would try and force you into that. And it's great. persevered through all of that, which like, I'm sure it's incredibly hard and incredibly difficult. And I just want to thank you.
Unknown Speaker 17:27
Yeah, it was, it was it was, it was awful. And I don't want to minimize, you don't talk to a lot of young, younger people, people younger than me at different stages in their identity formation. And, and what I am, what I hear is that even though it's a different era, and even though it's true, you know, our sexuality now is not right now. Anyway, right now is not criminalized, and we have marriage. And you know, we did we won all that it was an incredible, incredible victory of several generations of collaborative political work. I hear with young people there are still, you know, real struggles going on to have your own life. You know, and and, of course, as you well know, we're in the period of pushback of oppression. And I have to say, I never thought I would be living in a period that reminded me so much of my childhood
Sebastian Callahan 18:42
Really has it been since Trump was elected?
Unknown Speaker 18:48
Neo Facism, Greg abbott, But, you know, this anti trans, anti queer, anti black, anti migrant, it's like right out of my childhood. It's shocking, and horrifying. The good news is there's resistance. Yeah.
Sebastian Callahan 19:07
Do you think that happened? Like when Trump was starting to be, you know, run for president and around 2015 2016? Do you would you say that's when we came into this re-repressive place this Neo-repression?
Unknown Speaker 19:26
Well, he certainly made it. He certainly made it permissible publicly. And mainly, he was the president. And he made woman hating and black hating and queer hating, just permissible. It and that that is what reminded me of my childhood because every white authority figure I heard in my childhood, every single one, you know, Oh, the mayor, all my teachers, the publisher of the newspaper, my preacher, my parents, you name it. They were all segregationists is all the authority figures. Right? So when the President of the United States is an overt racist, then well, anything goes. So he gave permission. But I have to tell you, though the cohort that is now in the majority in the Supreme Court is only an expression of current of people who have been organizing Well, I'd say since the 1950s, and who believe, you know, who are like, who are Christian nationalists who think. And then, you know, they, they're, they're really that's just what they are. They think that other people of other religions don't get to have their religion, they, they really, they're also racist. They come out of a Southern tradition where, you know, all the major southern churches broke in the 1850s. Broke with the northern churches over slavery. So the Southern, you know, this is there's a reason why they call the Southern Baptist, the Southern, the Southern Baptist, that's the big Baptist denomination, but why do they call the southern Baptists because they broke with the other bad is to defend slavery. And, and the church I was raised in, which was Presbyterian and the Methodist Church, across the spquare. They were all, they all broke with the other Christian denominations to preserve slavery. And so that whole current has been defending right wing politics ever since ever since. Very few of them have changed their line, a few of them, but not all that many. And now they're organized politically. And they have, you know, they began that in the they began to political organizing in the 1950s. And it got stronger and stronger in the 70s in the 80s. The Evangelical culture, a talk show host and so forth. But it's not just an immediate phenomena. They've been organizing, they've been sending literature into the churches. Right? Like, I watched the church I was raised in Go an anti abortion church. Nobody talked about abortion when we were when I was coming along. You just weren't supposed to have sex before you got married? That was the answer. But now it's explicit, explicit, you know, these explicit values, no abortion, no women should be subservient to their husbands, blah, blah, blah, all that stuff. It's a reaction to the gains we've made, as in our movements. But they, they did a great job. I don't I hate to praise them. I'm not praising them. I'm just saying, they out organized the left on these issues. They organized at the community level. And they're very strong, and we've got to do that kind of work too
Sebastian Callahan 23:54
I’m sure it's a money thing to there's a lot of these, you know, it's a funded money and giving politicians money, especially just to help your platform and Trump was a was not a Christian man until he ran for president.
Unknown Speaker 24:11
I know what a contradiction. Oh, my God, like, but here's the thing, because I was raised in this religion. I really know how people in it think I know exactly how they think. They are saying to themselves, he's fallible. He's a sinner, but God sent him for us.
Sebastian Callahan 24:34
I mean, you've spot on, honestly, I come from a Catholic family. So I can Oh, a little bit, you know, and I know. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 24:44
You know, you know, I bet the history of your life is interesting Sebastian.
Sebastian Callahan r 24:51
definitely not as interesting as yours. We'll get back to you
Unknown Speaker 24:56
okay, so So that's that's a lot of background but I think It's helpful for people that to think historically, partly because it's easy for us to forget how much we've won, and how we did it. And if we can remember that and, and regroup and people are regrouping. You know, we didn't win because of the Democratic Party. We did not. We won because we self organize. Yeah. So people just, you know, have got to get back to that place. Now, what, what's the next question?
Sebastian Callahan 25:35
Tell me about what your connection is to Syracuse? And how would you say you're affiliated with Syracuse? And in what ways, if you want to tell me about how you came here?
Unknown Speaker 25:47
Oh, yeah, it's a really, it was a very great thing for me to come to Syracuse. And this is connected to the early part of my life. You know, when I got my PhD in 1979, it was when gay and lesbian and bi rights were flourishing, but we're not won. And so it was still acceptable by universities, not just public schools, but universities to fire people who are gay if they were out as gay. And so when I got my degree, I knew I had a lot of friends who were losing their jobs, because they were out and gay. So I had to make a decision was I going to hide myself to get work, you know, hide who I was, or was I just gonna try to be myself and live a pretty precarious life, I thought I would. You know, I had a PhD. But that didn't mean didn't mean I'd be able to get a job if I hit who I was. Um, so the only place I could get work at first was historically black college and university in Fayetteville, North Carolina, which was where I was living, okay, it will stay in and, in, I learned a lot there, I knew I was pretty ignorant about everything. And my students taught me really, humility, and history, and my co workers. Also, they were very tolerant of my ignorance, or maybe not tolerant. Anyway. And I went on from there, I had a series of jobs that were just, you know, like, two classes in the fall, maybe we'll give you two more classes in the spring, they paid me I don't know $1,000 A class or $1,500 a class and I live that like that for years and years and years. Because I, I just wasn't going to lie that who I was, you know. Now, what that meant was, I could do the work I wanted to do, I wrote what I wanted to write I needed to write and I did political work then and the ironic thing is that one of the things I wrote which was the……. it the feminist current in the to me, and then it just began to be hot everywhere, in colleges, like feminists, so I got to be well known, but not hireable I was well known but not hireable. And then I got then I got a like, the same kind of jobs but in Washington, you know, these part time jobs. I was hireable as a part timer, but not as a tenure person, not as a full time person, right. And that went on that went on for years and years I lived very very frugally. I had no money, but I did my work. And, and I had a great life full of, you know, ups and downs but still a great life. And then I got a couple of different positions being a get invited guest person for a year or semester. And then I was 50 Yeah 58 Right. It was 58. And Syracuse was starting its LGBTQ program, and they needed a face. And somebody who could be, you know, chatty and nice and bright, all that stuff, right. And, but it was completely accidental. I was out of work. I had been teaching in an experimental school. I was out of work, they had fired all the women faculty. And Leslie had a speaking engagement up at Canton. And Margaret hem Lee's partner, Robin, Robin Riley was teaching up there. And Leslie and Margaret and Robin, were somewhere together, because Leslie was speaking up there. And Leslie because she was trying to help me get work. I was trying to get jobs somewhere. Leslie said, they said, we're starting this program. We're Bob Oh, we're looking for a job. And Leslie said Minnie Bruce needs a job. They were like, really? What? Really? She was like, yes, yes. And, you know, that's how it started with that, you know, then it was, it was a process, right? A very wonderful, again, collaborative process between Women's Studies, the LGBTQ faculty, that who a lot of them were in composition and cultural rhetoric. And then others, you know, who were in different areas spread across the university, they did a great job, you know, making it happen. And, and I came, I came to Syracuse. I was very grateful to have it, it was the first. Well, I was there on a contract. So at first I had a two year contract. And then I had a three year contract. Every time I had to struggle to get my contract in you, so it was never completely secure. But other people were trying to help me stay. I wasn't doing it all by myself. And then I was part of this stuff that was going on there. Right. Like, when I first got there, and I went to human resources to register Leslie as my partner. They wouldn't accept our certificate from New Jersey that we were Oh, it was before marriage, you know, we were whatever the language was, you know, there had all these different forms where I, it was, it was not a marriage, it was like a certified partner or something. I don't know, we'd gone through a ceremony at the, at the city hall, and we had a certificate, we had a certificate stamp with New Jersey on it, and a signature and a big front, you know, the whole shebang? No, they wouldn't take that they had to have our bank accounts. As if, like, some people don't have joint bank accounts, even if they're married, right. Yeah, yeah. So it was it was hard. It was insulting. And humiliating. Right. And that was one of the first things we we had a struggle about was the way human resources was handling partners.
Sebastian Callahan 33:52
And so how did your experience at Syracuse University go from that point on teaching classes? Like What Did you teach? And how was how did you deal with you know, Syracuse, also developing as you know, as being a little bit more progressive?
Unknown Speaker 34:11
Right. Well, um, I taught the first LGBTQ class ever. at Syracuse, we made T shirts. That said first, you know, everybody had a t shirt. Some of them wouldn't wear them. Yeah. Wear them. Yeah, yeah. Now, that would have been 2006. I think. I'd have to go back and look at my records. Actually, I taught there a couple of different years and then it started to rotate through, you know, the different faculty. I taught the first trans oriented class at the University I really liked that I taught it several times. I taught women's studies, I taught composition, I taught creative writing. Because I was shared among the departments. I had three different departments right at three different because they were all funding me. So they got a little piece. Yeah. They were all funding me. And the thing is, of course, I had a reputation in all three areas. Right, I was a writer, I was a feminist and a women's liberationist. And I was queer activist. And, you know, so it was relevant. And I, I mostly just taught, I will let you know, I would lend a hand if there was a struggle, right. But I didn't, I wasn't really an within school organizing. I was a teacher and I was, you know, sort of a figurehead in that sense. They could say, oh, Minnie Brucee Pratt teaches there. And it was, it was good. It was good. But I have to say, I felt like I had more impact on the graduate students. Well, I don't know. I don't know. It's hard to say. It's hard to say who you have an impact on. But the last year I taught there was the year that the the first occupation of the of the administration building happened, not the not the most recent one, but the very first one, and it would have been 2014, November 2014. And it was a great coalition effort of many different oppressed people. And some of the key organizers were in my graduating class was called feminist narrative. And they would go off, they would they were living, in the administration building, they would leave and come to my class. And then they would say, tell me what you learned about narrative this week. And then they would talk about the administration spokespeople who were sent to give their version of the narrative. And how they answered it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. It was an amazing class. It really was. It was a, it was my idea of how one should be able to teach. Movement is happening here. People come for a break and talk it over. And then they go back. And there's information in the classroom of other struggles that might be held. Right. Yeah, that's to me that I, it's ideal. The ideal way to have you know, a living classroom. Yeah.
Sebastian Callahan 38:02
Yeah.Sounds like a dream class.
Unknown Speaker 38:05
It was it was my dream class. How are we doing on time, Sebastian, how are we doing?
Sebastian Callahan 38:11
We can check. Oh, we're doing good. I mean, we could not move forward if you'd like we're at 2:50. I've got so can you tell me about your poetry and your works? Your you know, all about? Yeah. And yeah, just start there.
Unknown Speaker 38:33
So I think the maybe the most important thing to know about my poetry is that it came out of the movement out of the lesbian feminist and lesbian queer, cultural movement, which was connected to this big movement we've been talking about that was about ending the sodomy laws and winning marriage. And you know, that this, there was a big movement. And then within it, there were different sub movements. And one of them was the women in print movement and the lesbian literary movement. And I was part of that. So the women in print movement was, again, very practical. We were writing about sexual issues, lesbian issues, but not just lesbian issues, you know, people were trying to put out information about abortion, about loving your own body about knowing your own body. And the people who who ran the printing presses wouldn't print it, because they considered it pornographic, and also threatening to the patriarchy. So what happened with the women in print movement is that women from all over the country got together. They were doing In this in their own communities, and then they got together, it became a national movement to start bookstores, learn how to print, start printing, printing companies, start distribution companies start. lesbian feminist publishing companies. They were all over the all over the country. And it was happening in the queer movement as well. There were, you know, newspapers. So I was in Durham. I was in North Carolina at the time I was in Fayetteville, and then I was in Durham. And there was a newsletter. And then it briefly became a magazine called seminary and we had a collective, the seminary collective, it was a lesbian magazine published. And Sinister Wisdom, which is legendary lesbian magazine had already started in Charlotte, North Carolina, and then it had moved to get better funding to North Dakota, I think somebody was a professor at North Dakota, and was going to fund them. Anyway, we stepped in. And we had this magazine. And there was another one in New York conditions. And so I went on from there, I was part of a group, I was part of a group and we read each other's material and we learn to print it. And, you know, I don't have my first book. Handy. But you know, I self published my first book, and that meant typing it myself and photographing the plate, so that my lover who had learned how to print could print the pages, and then I trimmed it and stapled it, my children helped with that. Somehow, I got a hold of them briefly, to help me put the book together. Oh, my God, it the same equipment that was printing the first non sexist children's book Lollipop Power in Durham, North Carolina, they had their own printing equipment, and so they let us use it. And I went on from there. I mean, you know, there went on from there. There were a lot of books. The first ones were published with Firebrand books, which which published this, which is the second book, which was about losing the children. Crime Against Nature. And this one won a big national prize. And so, no, you know, everybody, everybody in my literary circle was shocked, shocked. We were all shocked. Like, how did the Academy of American poets even know that this existed, I mean, it was nominated, but you know, and so, and then there's so much to say about this, but I read at the Guggenheim, with John Hollander and Richard Wilber and not Richard Wilbert. So pressing his name, anyway, doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. I made a political statement. They almost threw me off the stage, people were hissing from the audience. You know, it was like a big clash of cultures. Right? And, you know, Adrianne Rich was there. All these folks I knew from the lesbian literary movement. Anyway, I went on from there to just keep writing. And we got absorbed to some degree into the mainstream, like my next book was published by the University of Pittsburgh press. This latest book was published by Weslyan University, they have a poetry series, they're prestigious, right. But also, I had trouble with my next to last book, which was, I thought was a great book. But I had modeled it on the Communist Manifesto, and nobody wanted to publish it.. I finally I finally was able to get it published by being a judge in a contest where they probably should look and then you choose a book, right? This is the most recent Crime Against Nature. And this is coming out from sinister wisdom, which remember I mentioned was the right the Sinister Wisdom he has kept going year after year after year. And now it is back in the south is in Florida of all places, and inputs that still is putting out the journal Sinister Wisdom, and is publishing books. Really in there was a fight Who's another Firebrand? So, um, so that's sort of like the history of the writing that the guts of the writing is trying to bear witness to a queer life. That's what it is trying to bear witness to a clear line as truthfully as I can. And and for a while, I didn't think that was enough. But lately, I think it is now.
Sebastian Callahan 45:36
I'm sure it is. It really sounds like it. Yeah, that's amazing. So can you actually tell me a little bit more about that about how your processes when you try and, as you say, bear witness, but like, how would you? How do you turn these images and memories into, you know, craftily chosen syntax?
Unknown Speaker 45:59
Yeah, yeah, it's such a good question. Sebastian. It really is. Because there's so much why, like, how do you? How do you find? How do you even know? Right? Um, the process is really different for each book. Depending on what the what the framework of the book is, and I kind of usually know, in general, what the framework is, it involves some current struggle, right.
Unknown Speaker 46:45
Like, the book that was based on the Communist Manifesto, I was, came to that very late. And I was, I was being mentored by an old communist who was a great labor organizer. And he was talking to me about how to how to put words into action. Right. And and I asked him, I talked to him about what I was working on. And he said, rather than write in a way that you're showing sensitivity to a situation of struggle. Looking at it from the outside, right. Write, as if you're in the middle of the struggle in the middle of it. And see how that changes. Your writing? It's, it's a big difference. Big difference.
Sebastian Callahan 47:56
Those are words of wisdom.
Unknown Speaker 47:59
Yeah, they're great. I have them printed out sitting on my writing desk right now. Yeah, I'm gonna remember em.
Unknown Speaker 48:07
I'll send you let me make a note. send you the expert. I'll email it to you. So yeah, they're really? Yeah. It's easy to do. Milt, his name was was missing. Oh, he's an old, old communist. And he organized in the steel mills in Buffalo. Yeah. He was a wonderful man. He was a great, great thinker. So I started. I was already sort of doing that, obviously, you know, with my own life, and so forth. But when I was in Jersey City, I wanted to, I read the Communist Manifesto. And there's this passage in there. I'm just this beautiful language. I never read it. And I had no idea these two economists could write this beautiful language. I just couldn't believe it is so clear. It's so beautiful. And it's so helpful. And I thought, how all of these guys can write like, poets. What if a poet tries to write about the economy and work? Like, what if I just flip it? And so then I would just go around Jersey City, and I would just try to pay attention to people working, like, what were they doing? What What was it like for them? You know, what was it like for them? Like Mr. Otto Macaw who you know, was at the post office, and I would go in, and he would be putting letters in the postal boxes and talking to me through the openings, you know, like how to get how to really deliver, like the meaning of what it means to have that moment for him, and for me, um, I wrote a whole book about, about, you know, some of it was in North, you know, some of it was from the south, and then some of it was up north, I, I work on these books for a long, long time, like, Walking Back Up People's Street, I worked on it for 17 years. And Inside the Money Machine, I don't know, you know, 10 years, 11 years, 12 years, maybe. But I it's like, I write write, write, write, write, and then I go back, I go back and pull stuff from, that I've been working on all along, right? So I'm, I'm working on stuff, and sometimes I don't know what it's for. And then something happens, and it comes into focus, right? And that's what happened with Inside the Money Machine. And then I thought, nobody wants to publish this book. Is it because I said, it's based on the Communist Manifesto, like, this was 2011. Mind you, right? 2010. And, and then the pandemic came along the book was, had been out for 10 years. And I got a call from the guy who's head of the Poetry Project in New York, and he said, that book, that book, he said, my mother's a nurse, and she's had to retire and she felt so guilty. And she also felt nobody honored for her work. And I got that the poem about clocking out, you know, forgetting to clock out was about my nurse friend who retired. And she was about all her work as a nurse. And then the day she, she closed her desk and left, she forgot to clock out. She forgot to clock out. She's like, still a nurse. Anyway, he said, I read that letter to my mother. And she said she finally felt honored for her work. This point I had written 15 years before.
Sebastian Callahan 52:36
That's powerful.
Unknown Speaker 52:38
So I don't know this is not really an answer to your question, except just stay with it. You know, and whatever pulls it you write it? And don't think about what, where it's gonna go or what it's going to do? Or who's gonna read it. Any of that stuff. Just if it pulls at you write it. Yeah.
Sebastian Callahan 53:10
That brings me to another question, actually. Which is, when you after you take 10 or 17 years of writing, like a book that you think, you know, it's definitely you always, I'm sure. It comes to your mind like, oh, is this my magnum opus? Like, when do you reach that point? Of like, you are satisfied with the text? Like what turns in you? Like what?
Unknown Speaker 53:36
That is? Like? Really, really good question, which people often don't answer. They don't ask.
Sebastian Callahan 53:44
Because I've never felt finished, actually, with any of my works.
Unknown Speaker 53:48
yeah. Yeah, it's a very complicated process, because of course, they're the individual, whatever, right? The individual chapters or farms or whatever, and there's no and they get a lot of revising. And then there's the then there's the feeling of is this, you know, am I at the end of a book? Like, am I done with this? Am I finished with this? Right? And honestly, the poems stop coming. They, stop coming. In other words, have been writing, writing, writing, writing, writing, and at some point, I'm writing mostly in a particular area, right? Doesn't mean it's the only thing I'm writing but I'm mostly writing in this one area, like this last book for Leslie. I started writing that I started writing poems for that in.
Unknown Speaker 55:00
2004 Maybe. And I just wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote, and I wrote a whole bunch of other poems, too, that are in another book I'm working on right now. But, you know, Leslie died and I just working through my grief for her and I wanted to do this book, it was her book and
Unknown Speaker 55:32
and then I put it, I put a manuscript together. And then that's a whole long process. Because even as you're shuffling
Unknown Speaker 55:46
arms around what you want us to do still revising the poems many times more than that probably
Unknown Speaker 56:00
the only guidance I can give you honestly, is that, when upon is done is it should be, and you should leave it alone. It's like it feels like a piece, it feels like a piece of music that's finished. You know, like, you read it, and it's just like, complete. There's no little comma here or something, you know, it just like, it has its own. It's like its own organic entity. It's like a creature, almost. And you can't mess with it in Europe, bird it, you'll hurt it. It's beyond you. It's moved beyond you, you know, you've done you've found all the little places where you skimmed over something or you lie to yourself about something or you're pretending like that didn't really happen, or, you know, there are all kinds of things you can do and upon don't lie to yourself, or just not go deep enough or whatever. And there just comes a point where for then it's done. And it doesn't mean that 10 years from now, you might not look back and think oh, yeah, that that when that ending is really, it could have been a better Indian. But that's who I was there. And you say to yourself, that's who I was then. And Audre Lord, if You know, you know what, okay. Okay, so she has all my poetry books are in the other room. She has a collection called chosen poems and new or chosen poems. And there's a little introduction to that. Maybe I'll just send you that because I have the PDF. Okay. Thank you and Audrey PDF. Revision, it's about revision. It's an incredible like, it's like three little pages. It's just incredible. She and her lover were living in a house in the, in the US Virgin Islands, the tornado came and wiped out the house that included all Audre’s books, and manuscripts and everything. So she's walking around in the ruins of her own house, and her own library, and she looks down at her feet. This is how she writes the little introductory little piece on Revision. She looks down at her feet, and she sees her first book, little chapbook, first little chapbook she ever put together. And she picks it up. And she's standing in the ruins of her house. And she starts reading on. She starts reading the poems and says to herself, Oh, I wonder if I could make these any better. And then then this little, this little introduction is about how she decided whether she would mess with the forms. I think this is I think this is the piece for you.
Sebastian Callahan 59:31
Okay, yeah, I need an answer to that question for you. Thank you. Well, you gave me an already great one
Unknown Speaker 59:39
Yeah, I think Audre’s answer is going to be a really, really good answer. Because what she says is, you only want to make it more of what it already is not different from what it already
Sebastian Callahan 59:56
That reminds me of saying I heard yesterday from a chef actually, when it comes to food, and it was like a chef under salted his food, and like one of the master chefs said, they said, like, think of salt as a magnifying glass, and brings out the flavor. And the only, you know, you want just the perfect amount. And I think that way to like just, I think I'll, I'll use that in my writing now to actually about how I need to, it's the core essence, I need to it's also something writers have to stick to it's, you know, your essence of your work. And then you don't want to stray too far. But I, you just told me that if I feel I'm going a certain way, I should go that way. Because I'm very much you know, a spontaneous prosody kind of guy, when I write, but it's, it's, it's, you know, it's just years and years of work. I've got ahead of me.
Unknown Speaker 1:00:54
Yeah, but if you want, if you love it, then what a good life?
Sebastian Callahan 1:01:02
I think so too. It's the dream. For me. At least it is a dream.
Unknown Speaker 1:01:07
It's a good life. I mean, I think the most important thing is I have a granddaughter who's a musician, and I've had this conversation with her. I just said, you know, and she's already thinking this way. I said, What do you do? What are you thinking about college? What are you thinking about? She says, you know, it's really hard to sustain yourself with performance alone. So I'm trying to figure out something else I can do. At the same time, she says, like sound engineering. Oh, that's like my teaching. That was my second. You know, that was my second thing. I loved it, love to teach. But it also meant I could do my poetry.
Unknown Speaker 1:01:56
I agree exactly like I'm, I want to do the exact same thing and go to grad school and get my PhD. And I think you're like a great example about how someone, should you know, go about witing?
Unknown Speaker 1:02:08
Yeah, don't let them suck you down the tenure track? Road, though. Okay, don't?
Sebastian Callahan 1:02:14
Yeah, I’ll remember that.
Unknown Speaker 1:02:17
Because no, don't let them do it. Don't let, don't let them do that. Because it's, they keep telling you, oh, once you finish, you can do your own work. So beware. I mean, you have to make up your own decision, and some people can do it. I'm not saying everyone can't. I'm not saying it's bad for everyone. But it's tricky. Tricky,
Sebastian Callahan 1:02:38
Very tricky. And I'm not good with time management as I hope. And especially when I have a full time job, I'm sure squeezing in my work will be even harder.
Unknown Speaker 1:02:51
So are we I think we need to squeeze here at the end. Is that what we're
Unknown Speaker 1:02:55
squeezing? If you want to actually tell me a little bit about your spouse's work your spouse, Leslie Feinberg, if you could tell me a little bit about well, first more about how you met and you know, your relationship and how it culminated in?
Unknown Speaker 1:03:09
Oh, yeah. Oh, that's such a long story. I think I can't tell you because it's so emotional. about it. I'm actually trying to write a creative. I've got the three quarters of a draft of a creative nonfiction book about called marrying Leslie, but it really is about all the ways that you love somebody, right? Not the legal stuff, right. So we, we met each other in 92. And I have to say that the first phone call I had with her I laughed more on that phone call that I had practically in my whole life. It was so much fun. It's so much fun. And then I learned so much from Leslie about all kinds of things. Like, I don't know, I think she learned from me too, but I'm not as clear about what she might have learned from me. But for the record, for the record, what I can say that people should know about this is that
Unknown Speaker 1:04:23
she is best known for Stone Butch Blues, which is an iconic genderqueer novel. And really the first not the first but really the first wildly popular genderqueer novel since Radclyffe Hall, which was turn of the century, last century, um, Stone Butch Blues, and if people want to read it, they should go to Lesliefeinberg.net And it's up three online PDF. And also it's being translated into different languages. It's been translated into Italian, but it's out of print. And I'm trying to find someone who will do a new translation. The translations are free, also French, Basque, Spanish, more translations coming. So that's what she's best known for. But what her really her genius groundbreaking work was a Marxist analysis of the rise of gender, the male, female, bi-gender concepts based on class society. So going all the way back to the rise of class society, and tracing the way that the need for ownership generated the division into femaleness and maleness so that people who had property would know who their sons were, right. And then, all the way all the ways of being that within indigenous culture, were flexible, different social roles, different genderednesses, many different words, for different ways of being in your body. All the indigenous cultures across the world, not just in the US, had all these different ways. And they were systematically crushed by colonialism and imperialism. And this other system laid over them. And Leslie, you know, Leslie takes it all apart very, in a very popular way. It's very readable, it's very easily understandable. And it was really the beginning of transgender studies. Her book, even though similar to me, in my essay, she was never, you know, she was never taken into the academy. Right? I did find a place in the academy. But that's because my subject was already in women's liberation was already in the academy as feminist studies or women's studies. But trans studies wasn't yet in the academy, unless of did her work, right. So it's a work of genius, a sheer work of genius. And based on her, you know, all of her writing is based on her being a revolutionary communist. And if people want to know more, they should read her books and go to the website and you know, just learn about her work in that kind of way. I was we were really happy together really, really happy. That's right. We did everything. Yeah, we did. You know, we, we talked about our work together, we organized we were parents and grandparents together. We've, we've laughed a lot. We laughed a lot.
Sebastian Callahan 1:08:28
Sounds like the dream
Unknown Speaker 1:08:29
it was a dream. It was a dream. It's really hard to be without her.
Sebastian Callahan 1:08:36
I'm really sorry about your loss. So we can move forward. If you know, it's a little bit. You know, I know it's a sensitive topic. And I think I want to read your next book about marrying Leslie, and
Unknown Speaker 1:08:49
Oh, good. Maybe you'll be one of my readers. Yes,
Sebastian Callahan 1:08:53
I will. I will. Of course
Unknown Speaker 1:08:55
because I need I need readers for it. And you would be you would be you know, I've got a got people. I've got people at different ages. But I don't have anybody your age yet.
Unknown Speaker 1:09:12
sign you assign you up for that. Yeah. Because it's some of it has to do with like, yeah, Is there stuff that really needs to be explained? Right. You know, like, it's based on how we live, but maybe there's stuff that isn't clear. I don't know. I'm trying not to go under with it. It's really hard to write it. I have my journals that helps. I'm trying to be honest. I'm trying to go back and look at how we were and and pull out of that. What I might not have understood at the time, but I understand. You know? I don't know I've got to get back to it. I put it aside to finish another book and now I have to get back. It's coming up on the anniversary of her death. She died November 14. November No November 15, 2014. Yes I get the dates scrambled. November 15 2014.
Unknown Speaker 1:10:20
Okay. Yes. Is that Yes, no, moving along is good. Moving along this good, Sebastian.
Sebastian Callahan 1:10:25
Okay. We'll move along forward to about can you tell me about how you've dealt with intersectional oppression against, you know, your race, your gender, your sexual orientation? And I guess in this case, you know, it's about your more gender and sexual orientation. So, of course, you know, if you'd like to tell me more about that?
Unknown Speaker 1:10:50
Um, gosh, you know, it's kind of an interesting question. I think that you know, because I was part of the movement. That was how I dealt with it. Really, I mean, I suffered, I mean, emotionally, I suffered, you know, because of not having children and worrying about them. And but, um, but I was at always part of the movement. And so that kept me from despair.
Sebastian Callahan 1:11:22
So let's say, putting your effort into the movement, it gave you, like, solace, would you say
Unknown Speaker 1:11:31
It give me gave me solace, but it also made me feel like we were going to change it. You know, it wasn't so much solace. It gave me company that was solace, definitely. Company. But also, we were going to change it. I mean, we were and we did. I mean, it was just like, what was like that quote, like what Milt said, I was inside it. I wasn't outside. I was inside. And then what happened inside it was that, inside the movement, we were dealing with, we were trying to deal with some of us, the left wing of us, we were trying to deal with racism and anti semitism and all of those things, because they were inside the movement. So I wasn't dealing so much with the external world, as I was dealing with this whole world of the movement. You know, so there were these internal struggles, like, National Women's Studies Association, kept trying to deal with its structural racism and failing and I mean, ultimately, there, there was an overturning of it in a good way, you know, women of color came into the leadership and people who were intransigently racist, it's just quit being active. But that didn't take that took a long time, you know, a long time. So, so I guess, I guess that's the short answer is I, I just was inside the struggle against these things all the time. And, and still am mean, it's a little harder now because
Unknown Speaker 1:13:28
of COVID, and the isolation and everything, right? But, um, but I'm still doing it. And actually, that just reminded me, I should look at my phone. Because my I should bring my phone in here. Because one of my children who was helping me with tech problems, was going to call me and I don't want him to think I'm ignoring him. So let me grab my phone. I'll be right there. I'll be right there.
Unknown Speaker 1:14:01
So how’ve you can I ask, or so what wisdom would you like to bestow upon future generations of queer I have known your listeners?
Unknown Speaker 1:14:15
My gosh, oh my goodness. Wow. Well, this isn't so much about weirdness, but it is really, you know, to really pay attention to really pay attention to what you're you're learning you know, your
Unknown Speaker 1:14:41
your deepest yearning because we were told it was bad. Right. But, um, you know, one can certainly do hurtful things to other people. But
Unknown Speaker 1:15:06
getting in touch with why you're yearning, and what you're yearning for. Really, that deep yearning. I think it's never about destruction, I think it's always about attraction and love and a vision of something good. You could do it. And it's not necessarily clear how maybe, to do it, right. So there's that to be true to your, to your own yearning. And also, to never be alone, in your struggles, to find a way to be with other people somehow, what, however, however, that might be, you know, all kinds of ways to do that. But sometimes, it's easier to do that. And other times, right now, I think, the, you know, those terrible voices that you and I were talking about, that got amplified by the bad president, I think those are making it harder for people to reach out, you know, you could make us more reluctant. And I think we have to push that side, you know, and try to really reach out to each other, I don't mean to people who have been mean to us, I mean, the people with whom we have common goals, you know, that we might be able to do something together. And, and sometimes it's just something very simple, like planning on having a meal with somebody once a week. Right. And for some body, else, it might be doing work together. Sharing work. There are all kinds of ways but just to, to know that you know, all those slogans are really correct, that people united will never be defeated. ¡El pueblo unido jamás será vencido!, you know, you know, we marched down the street chanting, but it's true, actually, you know, but how you find your people and how you connect to them and how you do work with them. And all that, you know, is unique to each person, you have to find that door. And, and be very patient with the other people and firm also, right? Like, not say, you think somebody is being off base and racist, and but you don't have to give up on them either. You know, say no, don't do that. I mean, I've certainly done that in my day. You know, no, you can't tell racist jokes. While I'm driving you in the car. I'm just gonna stop right here. And you'll have to get out and walk home
Unknown Speaker 1:18:17
I mean, there are ways to do it. Right? You want to walk home now? Right? Good stop. Oh, my gosh, I don't know. You know, why can I say you just you both have to be patient and stand up against depression at the same time. Knowing I mean, you're already doing it. You love what you're doing? You're doing your part, that's for sure. So you are Sebastian and persisting, you know, despite the broken phon4.
Unknown Speaker 1:19:00
Thank you. Thank you. I, I tried. I wish there's more time.
Unknown Speaker 1:19:05
I’m happy to get to talk to you.
Unknown Speaker 1:19:08
Yes, me too. I'm about to ask my final question. In that case, if that's okay with you. Can you tell me we're going back honestly, what you were saying about how like you had to be together and with someone through the process of feeling alone, often in places, you know, where, especially in the LGBTQ community where, you know, being alone can be often like a very central theme to coming out and ,being, you know, and I want to know, who are you're grateful for? And are there any words you'd like to share with anyone? Gosh, this is always a hard one. So I'm sorry.
Unknown Speaker 1:19:54
No, no, it's a really, really good question because you know, after Leslie died, it was very hard for me to think about who I was grateful for. I mean, part of it was just I just had to keep living. And that was hard to do. But then there was a period where I would wake up every morning morning and say, Oh, no, I have to get up. Not a good way to start the day. Right? So then I started saying to myself, when you wake up, try to think of what you're grateful for, you know, something that's going to happen during the day, or maybe something that happened before. So it's a really, really good question. I'm right now, today, I'm very grateful for the neighbors in my building, who I don't know very well, but who, I live on a very multinational floor in my building. And so like, the, you know, there's a grandfather who's taking care of his grandchild. He's an African American grandfather and an African American grandchild. person across from me is another man who's much younger, also African American, taking care of young boys, his boys, raising them. My neighbor, you know, who’s white and my age and is not well, but always talks to me. It's a good thing right now. For me, to be where they are these people who I don't know what they think of me, you know, probably that old white lady who knows, but they're kind to me and I’m kind to them. Right? And we're all living here together. On this on our, on our floor, some queer people to some other queer people who are suffering, and I'm just really grateful for them. And I'm really grateful that I have my family. I can't believe it sometimes. But all those grandchildren I talked to, you know, some of them almost every week, some of them not so often. And I'm grateful for I have some friends my age, one of them was a nurse. And I've known her since we were toddlers. We were exactly the same age, and she's a lesbian. And she's, she's still alive. And I see her when I go home to Alabama, and we've known each other all our lives. Kathy. And I really, really love her. We really love each other. And I have another friend who's part of the literary culture, Irena, Irena Klepfisz. She just published a new book, a really wonderful new book hits her collected poems. And she's a Holocaust survivor. She was she was four, I think when her mother got her out of the country. Her father was part of the resistance and died there. And but with both of these strands, with Irena, and with Kathy, both of whom have had extremely difficult lives as lesbians. We just laugh all the time. When we talk to each other, we just laugh. I mean, we're angry, you know, too, but we also just laugh. I'm really grateful for that way. I'm really grateful. And, Julie, let me mention to you. Julie was Sinister Wisdom who I also laugh with when I see her. Yeah. You know, doing so much to like, make sure she's doing her own version of what you're doing. You know, she's trying to you know, she's just trying to make sure things don't get lost.
Sebastian Callahan 1:24:16
I should talk to her that I should send her an email,
Unknown Speaker 1:24:19
just Google Google's Sinister Wisdom, you'll you that will be an education in and of itself. pLook for Julie.
Unknown Speaker 1:24:28
And what incentives I get off, I'm gonna send you what I promised you.
Sebastian Callahan 1:24:35
Thank you so much. Oh, my gosh. Well is there anything else you'd like to add, or are we okay to finish?
Unknown Speaker 1:24:44
I'm just I think, you know, to everybody who's listening to this and who knows who that will be? Right? No matter what's going on United organizing, with respect for Individuals can be so powerful it can change the world, and has, and will, again, that's the way to go. solidarity across all of our, you know, solidarity with others who have their own special oppressions. Solidarity with them, so that we figure out how to stick with each other. And then, you know, we'll just keep making the world better. I just read, I just read the last section of chapter two of the Communist Manifesto, we were making a class for workers world, we were making a slideshow for class. And we were looking for a nice ending to this class on state and revolution. And we put the section in from the end of chapter two of the manifesto was like, when the working class becomes united and start setting it's owpn the agenda, what has to happen. And then there was this list of 10 things that had to happen to change into a new form of state, right, a new kind of state, not a capitalist state, but a workers state. Right. And we were reading to this list of 10 things. And I said to the person I was working with when I said, Hey, look at that, Cuba's already done all of those things. Oh, my god. It's so this is from 1848. Until now, right? We have at least one state in the world that has gone through all of these things that Karl Marx and Frederick Engels said, needed to be done to have a state that was not dominated by capitalism. I thought, Oh, my God, I never thought of it that way. They said this needed to be done. And now 150 years later, people have been trying to make it happen. And at least one place it has been fulfilled, and others are still trying, all nations are still trying. So I think, for people to remember, it's when you're sunk in your own struggle, it can seem insurmountable. And you may not see the end of it. But 150 years later, somebody may. Somebody may, we're just in another stage of it right now where we have to really fight hard against these Neo-fascists who have no imagination. None, none!
Unknown Speaker 1:27:39
True. Exactly.
Unknown Speaker 1:27:43
That's why That's why the writers and the poets and that's why we're needed. Yes. All right.
Unknown Speaker 1:27:54
Well, thank you. I'm gonna end this wasn't
Transcribed by https://otter.ai