The GLBTRT has been reviewing books and movies in its newsletter since the early 1990s. Trace the evolution of queer publishing through these historic reviews. This review was originally published in Vol. 3, No 4, Winter 1991.
A valuable collection of poems and short essays, nearly all reprinted elsewhere, by political activist, social historian, feminist and lesbian, Susan Sherman. Her work encompasses nearly three decades and comments upon many of the complicated, often overwhelming, indeed radicai changes that have taken place during these times in society and in her head.
This collection is divided into three sections: ‘The Color of the Heart” contains comments on her personal odyssey; “Cuba, Chile, Nicaragua” are reflections on the changes taking place in the countries she visited in the sixties, seventies, and eighties, especially her observations on the women’s movement in Nicaragua; in “Divisions” and “Sexuality and Identity” she defines her personal identity as a human being and as a woman who has become “woman identified”; ‘The Counterfeit Revolution” evaluates the roles of Marshall McLuhan, Jacques Derrida and Jacques Lacan and their respective roles in the politics of the sixties; and finally, in “Creativity and Change” Sherman’s persona as artist and creator emerges: ‘The work of art is, as a person is, both memory (the past) and the activity (the present). It is as each human being is, at each moment simultaneously complete and in the process of completion.”
Reviewed by Jane Jurgens
Northeastern lllinois University
Chicago, lllinois
