Love and Politics

by Judith Malina

Judith Malina and her longtime companion-comrade Julian Beck founded the Living Theatre in New York City in 1947. In these poems Judith shares her anguish at injustices inflicted by bureaucratic authority; the rewards she found in love and collaboration with Julian; her difficulties in making some life-defining choices.

About the author

Judith Malina was co-founder, with Julian Beck, of The Living Theatre, the most experimental, radical, and uncompromising group in American theatrical history.

Reviews

[Tom Schulte · Rating 4 out of 5]

Introduced by Ira Cohen, the poetry here being blank verse lacks the memorable rhythms and rhymes that tend to impress and stick with me. However, I am impressed and engaged by unique perspective, and often dark.

Pressing

Everything is intrusion.
The cow on the field trespasses.
The mote in my eye,
Like the eyeball in its socket
Presses against the lid,
Seeking its space in the nothing,
Where something seemed
To be pressing against it,
Scraping, adhering, piercing, lying still.

Malina got involved with Hollywood and rather in despair of that environment it is one subject that crops up the autobiographical verse.

On the Set
Now they will ask me to weep,
And I’ll turn into Hecuba for them.
And they will be amazed,
How I can make tears flow
Anytime they say “Action!”
So it is:
Action is suffering.
And it isn’t much to them,
That I am suffering,
As long as I weep promptly
When they say “Action!”
Action is suffering.
The director says “Action!”
And I restrain only
The holding back of tears.

[Harper · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't think I'll finish this. Beni thought it was mid too. Anyway school over I shall read fr