We Say We Love Each Other

by Minnie Bruce Pratt

A reissue of the first collection of poetry by the author of Crime Against Nature evokes the lesbian odyssey in search of a place to live as one chooses and captures the eroticism and sensuality of love for another woman. Simultaneous.

Genres: Poetry, Queer, Feminism

98 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Minnie Bruce Pratt (b. September 12, 1946 in Selma, Alabama) is an U.S. educator, activist, and award-winning poet, essayist, and theorist. Pratt was born in Selma, Alabama, grew up in Centreville, Alabama and graduated with an honors B.A. from the University of Alabama (1968) and a Ph.D. in English literature from the University of North Carolina (1979). She is a Professor of Writing and Women’s Studies at Syracuse University where she was invited to help develop the university’s first Lesbian/Gay/Bisexual/Transgender Study Program. She emerged out of the women’s liberation movement in the 1970s and 1980s and has written extensively about race, class, gender and sexual theory. Pratt, along with lesbian writers Chrystos and Audre Lorde, received a Lillian Hellman-Dashiell Hammett award from the Fund for Free Expression to writers "who have been victimized by political persecution." Pratt, Chrystos and Lorde were chosen because their experience as "a target of right-wing and fundamentalist forces during the recent attacks on the National Endowment for the Arts."[1] Her political affiliations include the International Action Center, the National Women's Fightback Network, and the National Writers Union. She is a contributing editor to Workers World newspaper. Pratt's partner is author and activist Leslie Feinberg.
[from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnie_B...]

Reviews

[Devon :~)]

No rating yet!! I have to think. It’s poetry. There were a few that I really liked:
Waulking Song: Two
It Will Always Be Too Soon
Staying Together

[grace · Rating 5 out of 5]

there was just something so special about this collection that really jut got to me and, like, punched me in the gut. the way she grappled with her sexuality and the falling in and out of love was written so beautifully, and her inclusion about issues women face (harassment, rape, inequality in general) made the collection even more powerful.

[Kaden McGuire · Rating 3 out of 5]

The subjects addressed in the collection are deep and important, and Minnie Bruce Pratt is not afraid to be direct and punch you into understanding the story she is telling. For the most part, it does read that way: a somewhat-chronological story of her adult years. It includes a staggering range of experiences from the mundane, to the earth-shattering and evil, to the ecstasy of finding yourself and finding love.

However, as poetry, it isn’t my cup of tea. It lacks strong imagery, mainly any decent metaphors, and a couple that did crop up were used multiple times rather than just including the stronger poem. There were no stand-out poems, or even stand-out lines. It mostly felt like mediocre prose broken into stanzas that didn’t really flow.

[shar]

—"Yesterday Nettie in my office talked about summer / school, her geography course, how before she hadn't / really known where she was, whether she went / east or south to get to the beach, didn't know / how to read a map, Ezra always did that. / She said, I never had any need to read a map, / every place I go it's already charted. "

— "I will not drive downtown today. I am afraid / there has been no change, that my anger and despair / may ignite like a mass of oiled rags. I might / walk into an intersection and burst into flames."

As with most poetry collections, a few hits and misses. The ones I liked:
"Reading Maps: One"
"In Each Other's Arms, Lightning"
"Usually We Are Not Fooled By Despair"
"Plums"

[Brooke Eubanks · Rating 3 out of 5]

Erotic and painful. Maybe 3.5*