Fire-Rimmed Eden: Selected Poems (Sapphic Classic)

Fire-Rimmed Eden: Selected Poems gathers poems from Lynn Lonidier’ s rich and varied collections. Lonidier published five poetry collections Po Tree (1967), The Female Freeway (1970), A Lesbian Estate (1977), Woman Explorer (1979), Clitoris Lost: A Woman’ s Version of the Creation Myth (1989), and a posthumous book, The Rhyme of the Ag-ed Mariness (2001). Her poetry links multiple poetic constellations of the 1970s and 1980s demonstrating linguistic innovations and radical reconfigurations sexuality and gender.

The poems of Fire-Rimmed Eden are in conversation with narrative impulses from the feminist and lesbian poetry movements of the 1970s and 1980s, including work by Judy Grahn, Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich, and others, as well as experimental poetic impulse from the same period found in work by Robert Duncan (Duncan’ s partner Jess gave the cover art for A Lesbian Estate), Lyn Hejinian, Carla Harryman, and Etel Adnan. Some of Lonidier’ s work is concrete in the spirit of May Swenson’ s Iconographs while other poems are performative like Bay area poets Pat Parker and Jerome Rothenberg.

Previously completely out of print, Lonidier’ s poetry is ripe for a new generation of readers. Fire-Rimmed Eden assembles a robust selection of Lonidier’ s work introduced by Sinister Wisdom editor and publisher Julie R. Enszer. Rich and diverse, visually and aurally exciting, boldly experimental and intellectually provocative, Lonidier’ s poetry is imbued with wit, humor, originality, and play.

Lynn Lonidier (1937-1993) was a poet, writer, teacher, multimedia and theater performance artist, and political activist who often described herself as “ a card-carrying anarchafeminist.” She lived in the San Francisco Bay area.