Research Catalog

Title

The queen of swords / Judy Grahn.

Author

Grahn, Judy, 1940-

Publication

• Boston : Beacon Press, [1987]
• ©1987

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

• Smith, Pamela Colman.
• Beacon Press, publisher.

Description

x, 178 pages; 23 cm

Summary

"A wise and witty collection of poetry and drama, The Queen of Swords is a magnificent re-creation of an ancient myth. Based on the five-thousand-year-old Sumerian story of the perilous descent of Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth, to the underworld to expand her worldly powers, the book retells Inanna's story in a poetic drama and two long poems. The play 'The Queen of Swords' is set in a modern context, an underground lesbian bar where Nothing is the bartender and seven Crow Dykes confound definition. Helen, the modern-day Inanna, a goddess of beauty, life, and light, descends to this underworld bar and confronts the midnight queen of creative violence and transformation, Ereshkigal. The relationship that develops between these two female mythic characters is a powerful metaphor for the struggles that attend all human transformations. The two long poems in the second half of The Queen of Swords are also about descent and struggle. In 'Descent to the Roses of the Family' a contemporary American woman speaks to her brother about their parents, asking him to help her avoid teh same descent to misery that her parents endured--violence, alcoholism, madness. The final poem, 'Talkers in a Dream Doorway,' is a passionate tribute to the powers women have developed and a testimony to the delicate balancing these powers require."--Jacket.

Subject

• Lesbians > Fiction
• Gay bars > Fiction
• Lesbians > Poetry
• Lesbians' writings, American
• Gay bars
• Lesbians

Genre/Form

• Fictional Work
• Poetry
• poetry.
• Fiction
• Lesbian fiction
• Lesbian drama
• Lesbian fiction.
• Lesbian poetry.
• Poetry.
• Romans.
• Poésie.
• Romans lesbiens.
• Poésie lesbienne.

Note

• "Based on the 5000-year-old Sumerian story of ... Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth."
• "Second book in Judy Grahn's four-volume Chronicle of queens series."

Bibliography (note)

• Bibliography: p. 177-178.

Contents

The queen of swords : a play with poetic myth -- Two poems : Descent to the roses of the family ; Talkers in a dream doorway -- The descent of Inanna to the Underworld / Betty De Shong Meador -- Background notes on characters in The queen of swords.

ISBN

• 0807068020
• 9780807068021
• 0807068039
• 9780807068038

LCCN

87047537

OCLC

• ocm16089339
• 16089339
• SCSB-1186552

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library