Remembering Beth Brant
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My pal, Tim Retzloff, maintains a fabulous website Michigan LGBTQ Remember. At the site, Tim posts obituaries of LGBTQ people in or from Michigan who have died. In addition to the obituaries, Tim maintains a blog, Queer Remembering, which has unfolded over the past year and a half with beautiful, meditative posts about the work of history, the engagements of historians, and thoughtful, provocative reflections on Tim’s work as an historian, archivist, activist, and Michigander.
In the spring, inspired by my work on a Sapphic Classic of Beth Brant’s work (a project that will be coming out next year), I asked Tim if he would write and publish an obituary for Brant at the site. He immediately agreed, and, in his Tim-way, upped the game. Tim said, “Yes, but Beth’s life and her work were so important, her obituary should also appear in the newspaper; let’s ask >Between the Lines if they will publish it. And let’s co-write the obituary together.”
We did that together over the past few months. Tim has the obituary here at Michigan LGBTQ Remember and it will be live at Between the Lines later this week and in the August 9th edition in print. [I will add links to the website and a PDF of the print edition when I have them.]
I knew Beth Brant when I lived in Michigan. She was one of the first lesbian-feminist writers I knew personally. She and her partner Denise had me over for dinners. I took a writing workshop with Beth, and we talked for hours about her life as a writer. I very much wanted to be like her and have treasured her books for years. One of my regrets in life is that we did not maintain our relationship. First, I became embroiled in a passionate love affair with the woman known here as the beloved; then we moved away to Colorado. I wrote to her in the last year of her life, but we did not pick up our friendship. I wish that I had stayed in touch with her throughout the years. I wish this was not another story of my failure at friendships. Amid the realities of failures, of losses is the work of remembering. The Sapphic Classic of Beth Brant’s work will be a tool for memory, keeping Brant’s work alive in people’s memories, and tool for new acquaintanceship, for readers who had not previously known Brant’s work. I am excited to be shepherding it into the world.
I appreciate Tim’s work on the obituary. Like most collaborative projects, it is better because of our work together. Michigan’s LGBTQ community is better for Tim’s work on the website, on the blog, and in person. He is a person who shows up every day to engage with meaning and purpose in the world and on behalf of the issues, ideas, and principles in which he believes. Thinking of Tim in these ways, I realize that he and Beth Brant shared much in common in how they moved in the world. They both show up for life and write about it. What pleasure to know them; what joy to be a part of their work!
