Lifting Belly: An Erotic Poem (Counterpoints)

Fragmentary, unabashed, erotic―“Lifting Belly” is a singular lesbian love poem from modernist Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) which lays bare desire and easy intimacy—now in a beautifully packaged edition.

What is it when it’s upset. It isn’t in the room. Moonlight and darkness. Sleep and not sleep. We sleep every night.

What was it.

I said lifting belly.

You didn’t say it.

I said I mean lifting belly.

Don’t misunderstand me.

Do you.

Do you lift everybody in that way.

No.

You are to say No.

Lifting belly.

How are you.

Lifting belly how are you lifting belly.

We like a fire and we don’t mind if it smokes.

Do you.

―From “Lifting Belly”

Each palm–size book in the Counterpoints series is meant to stay with you, whether safely in your pocket or long after you turn the last page. From short stories to essays to poems, these little books celebrate our most–beloved writers, whose work encapsulates the spirit of Counterpoint Press: cutting–edge, wide–ranging, and independent.

Gertrude Stein (1874–1946) was an American Jewish writer, poet, and art collector who spent most of her life in France. Her body of work include Three Lives, Tender Buttons, The Making of Americans, and The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. Not only was she an innovator in literature and a supporter of modern poetry and art, she was the friend and mentor of those who visited her at her now–famous home: Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Jean Cocteau, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Sherwood Anderson, and Guillaume Apollinaire.