In 1973, Ain’t I a Woman, a feminist newspaper in Iowa City, published and distributed the anthology Because Mourning Sickness is a Staple in My Country, an anonymous collection of “poems by working-class dykes who have been going through changes and writing poems, among other things.” Printed on newsprint, the small book is “designed to fit your back pocket.”
None of the poems in the collection are attributed to a particular author, a choice that highlights many lesbians’ need for anonymity during the 1970s. The consequences of coming out could be severe: denial of parental custody, job loss or violence. It’s possible, too, that the authors in Because Mourning Sickness is a Staple in My Country chose anonymity to avoid what they perceived as a patriarchal star-making machine. Some lesbian feminists critiqued the mainstream media’s anointing of feminist “stars”–who tended to be photogenic, of European descent and heteronormative in appearance. By remaining anonymous, authors in the anthology insist on attention to their words and experiences.
There are many poems in Because Mourning Sickness is a Staple in My Country that will resonate with contemporary readers: poems on breaking up and losing lovers, on loneliness and isolation, and on joy and empowerment. Here I’ve reprinted two poems that capture women’s experiences working. “On Becoming a Dedicated Public Servant” describes a deadening experience of office work, while “There are never wastebaskets” provides a house cleaner’s reflections on picking up the detritus of people’s lives.
Both invite us to think about work and ask ourselves, forty years later, how much has changed.
On Becoming a Dedicated Public Servant
With midnight splash in bursting brook
my barren head sought nurture for
New Dreams.
Morning found it placed again
among machines,
terrified
the dream would fade before the day
and crazed with thirst
I’d see fountains gush
from this dead sea of paper.
Similarly, in “There are never waste baskets,” the poet’s alienation—and anger—about her work is powerfully rendered. (You can read the full anthology at the Lesbian Poetry Archive.)
There are never waste baskets
in the right places
cleaning other peoples houses
Without thinking about it very much
you stick their garbage in your pocket
the garbage that’s too big
to be sucked in by the vacuum
the crap that’s too little but unsightly
Cleaning other people’s house
you know they want them to look clean
without thinking about it very much
Sticking other people’s garbage in my pocket
is symbolic
and I always intended to write a poem about it
just like I always intend to clean my own house
so it looks as nice as theirs
I never do have the time though
and I have found difficulty
in locating my proper dwelling
Our lives are full of intrusions
sensible and logical demands from
a world of definitions that don’t define us
that don’t tell me what it is
this being a lesbian
what one does
being a lesbian
The intrusions are always immediate
and they take up all my time
Even when I begin to feel
the groping pins of self discovery
I am interrupted and involved
before I see the involvement
for the interruption it really is
Everybody and me too – I knew
I really wasn’t doing anything anyway
Without thinking about it very much
Picking up the garbage cleans their rugs
and dirties your pockets
A friend of mine one time said
she realized how unacceptable this life was
but if it was charitable
well, something for free is better than nothing
but thinking about having to work so hard
at surviving to live
the way you don’t want to live
to begin with
makes you at least contemplate
not working at all
I am finally running scared
and thinking very much
about the things I do
without thinking about them very much
I don’t want to die
of constipation
or with blue little tabs from
pampers that were on other people’s babies
I do not want to die
so full of their world
I would rather even
that I die a woman emptied.
Further Reading:
Because Mourning Sickness is a Staple in My Country (chapbook)
LGBTQ Life in Iowa City, IA 1967-2010
Photos of feminist newspaper Ain’t I a Woman (TOP) and front cover of the anthology Because Mourning Sickness is a Staple in My Country (RIGHT) courtesy of the Lesbian Poetry Archive.