The Butterfly Effect

admin — Sun, 27 May 2007 19:06:00 +0000

While reading the first half of Susan Hawthorne’s newest collection of lesbian poems, The Butterfly Effect, I found myself lost in footnotes. Each poem reads on the right page, while footnotes to the poem fill up the left page. Most of the time, the footnotes are as long as, if not longer, than the actual poem. At first, I thought this was a brilliant idea. Then I started to get slightly annoyed by the footnotes and felt that they were a little pompous and unnecessary. How dare Hawthorne interrupt the poetic flow with a useless footnote!

But I re-thought this assertion, and wondered if there are readers out there who are not aware of Sappho, lesbian bar culture, the history of lesbian literature, the lesbian prisoner stereotype or the importance of pool in lesbian culture. My final conclusion of the footnotes is one of intrigue: either Hawthorne uses the footnotes to educate the reader to the purpose of every image that she used. She also uses the footnotes to create a steady pause between each image, giving the reader more time to really think about what she is trying to create.

Either way, footnotes or not, each poem is breathtaking in its imagery, emotionality, creativity and political conscious. The second (and footnote-less) half of The Butterfly Effect stems from the tumultuous emotions brought on by her mother’s death. Hawthorne invites the reader into a twenty page “Dialogue With Death,” recounting the situation surrounding her mother’s death and the aftermath of grief and loss. Hawthorne executes each poem with great style and courage. As a whole, this book of poetry is intended for the smart reader, the emotional reader, the relentless reader and the lesbian who wants to understand the depth of her herstory. The Butterfly Effect is an enchanting collection of profound poetry.

Written by: Chelsey Clammer, May 27th 2007

September 11, 2001: Feminist Perspectives

admin — Mon, 21 May 2007 13:25:00 +0000

Edited by Susan Hawthorne, Bronwyn Winter

Spinifex Press

As an antidote for all the disingenuous head-scratching over “what went wrong” in Iraq—how the United States transmuted the world’s sympathy and support into global revulsion in the wake of September 11, this painful retrospective on what might have been—or rather what should have been—is a powerful tonic. The writings gathered here, a pastiche of genres and a powerfully diverse set of feminist voices, were written in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks and published by an Australian press. Collectively, they urge restraint, appreciation of context and cultural history, acknowledgment of American complicity in terror, resistance to stereotyping and a simplistic Manichean perspective on those involved. Collectively, they imagine a nation that might have emerged from this trauma sadder but wiser, with a renewed place of leadership in the world.

This book reminds us that not everyone succumbed to fear mongering and the atavistic desire for revenge as the toxic dust settled over Manhattan. As we listen now to campaign-inspired and half-hearted mea culpa from politicians complaining they were misled, this collection proves that there were thinkers of real courage speaking out for peace and caution even in the weeks immediately after 9/11.

Barbara Lee, for example, in a piece written on 24 September 2001, explains why she stood alone in the House of Representatives in voting against war authorization: “I could not support such a grant of war-making authority to the president; I believe it would put more innocent lives at risk.” Candlelight vigils, held throughout the world, pleaded that “war and retaliatory violence are not the answer to terrorism, as they have never resolved any conflict”—to use the language of the Delhi Women’s Petition. In poems, letters, editorials and essays, feminist writers around the world stood up in the midst of the anger and asked for compassion, for a renewed commitment to global justice.

There are also ominous warnings throughout the book about the consequences of war for women that, six years later, have still not fully come to public notice. A poem by Evelyne Accad reminds us that “war conceives only war.” What we must now remember, even if catastrophically late, is that there was another way.

Written by: Rick Taylor, May 21st 2007