{"id":1981,"date":"2021-12-13T11:58:59","date_gmt":"2021-12-13T16:58:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/?p=1981"},"modified":"2021-12-15T09:26:20","modified_gmt":"2021-12-15T14:26:20","slug":"the-ritual-the-gathering-the-making-beth-brant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/leonard\/the-ritual-the-gathering-the-making-beth-brant\/","title":{"rendered":"“The Ritual, The Gathering, The Making” \u2014 Beth Brant"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The cover of Sinister Wisdom<\/em>‘s 1983 edition, A Gathering Spirit<\/em>. The storm clouds were drawn in pencil by Rosemary Anderson in 1982.<\/p><\/div>\n

Beth Brant was asked by Adrienne Rich and Michelle Cliff, editors of the lesbian feminist periodical Sinister Wisdom<\/em>, to assemble its 1983 edition, in which they wanted to include solely North American Native women artists and writers. Brant\u2014Mohawk essayist and poet\u2014accepted, and prioritized elevating the voices of \u201cwomen yet unheard\u201d in A Gathering of Spirit<\/em>. She searched for writers within the greater collective of Native women by writing to prison organizations, Native women\u2019s health projects, and other networks to spread the word and collect stories previously silenced (6). Through this project, she established the power of the Native women collective that cultivates change through sharing stories.<\/p>\n

Brant precedes the writers featured in this edition in her introduction titled “A Gathering of Spirit.” She calls upon the Women\u2019s Liberation Movement to recognize its inherent flaws in excluding Native voices, a theme we see echoed throughout Native feminist poetry. She articulates her anger towards the \u201cso-called women\u2019s movement that forgets we exist,\u201d that exploits Native women and their culture through \u201cRomantic fantasies of \u2018earth-mother\u2019 and the Indian-woman-as victim\u201d (7). One of the themes Brant draws upon that are echoed throughout the poems in this collection is the vital role that Native women play as the original \u201cfire-tenders\u201d and lifekeepers, whose hands \u201clive and work in the present, while pulling on the past. It is impossible for us to not do both\u201d (8). In her introduction, Brant initiates \u201cThe Ritual\u201d of honoring Native women of the past, \u201cThe Gathering\u201d of Native womens\u2019 spirits, and \u201cThe Making\u201d of a future that the collective of Indigenous women storytellers has been tending to all along (8).<\/p>\n

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An excerpt from Beth Brant’s introduction to A Gathering of Spirit<\/em>, including two quotes from Linda Hogan and Gloria Anzald\u00faa.<\/p><\/div>\n

Sources:<\/p>\n

Brant, Beth. “A Gathering of Spirit.” Sinister Wisdom: A Gathering of Spirit<\/em>, no. 22\/23, Iowa City Women\u2019s Press, 1983, pp. 5-9.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Beth Brant was asked by Adrienne Rich and Michelle Cliff, editors of the lesbian feminist periodical Sinister Wisdom, to assemble its 1983 edition, in which they wanted to include solely North American Native women artists and writers. Brant\u2014Mohawk essayist and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2653,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-leonard"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2653"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1981"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1981\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3085,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1981\/revisions\/3085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/engl113-f18\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}