Pat Parker

Pat Parker (born Patricia Cooks; January 20, 1944 – June 17, 1989) was an American poet and activist.

Both her poetry and her activism drew from her experiences as an African-American lesbian feminist.

Her poetry spoke about her tough childhood growing up in poverty, dealing with sexual assault, and the murder of a sister.

At eighteen, Parker was in an abusive relationship and had a miscarriage after being pushed down a flight of stairs.

After two divorces she came out as lesbian "embracing her sexuality" and said she was liberated and "knew no limits when it came to expressing the innermost parts of herself".

Parker participated in political activism and had early involvement with the Black Panther Party and Black Women's Revolutionary Council, and formed the Women's Press Collective.

She participated in many forms of activism especially regarding gay and lesbian communities, domestic violence, and rights of people of color.

Pat was born on January 20, 1944, in Houston, Texas, to Marie Louise (née Anderson) and Ernest Nathaniel Cooks.

Marie Louise worked as a domestic worker and Ernest retreaded tires.

She was the youngest of four daughters.

The family lived first in the Third Ward and then moved to the Sunnyside neighborhood when Parker was four years old.

She left home at seventeen and moved to Los Angeles to attend college.

Both Bullis and Parker became involved in the Black Panther Party in the 1960s.

Parker and Bullins separated after four years.

She later said that her ex-husband was physically violent and that she was "scared to death".

She married Robert F. Parker, writer and publisher, but decided that the "idea of marriage... wasn't working" for her.

She began to identify as a lesbian in the late 1960s, and, in a 1975 interview with Anita Cornwell stated: "after my first relationship with a woman, I knew where I was going."

Parker gave her first public poetry reading in 1963 in Oakland.

She attended Los Angeles City College and also was enrolled in San Francisco State College from 1966 to 1967 but did not graduate.

In 1968, she began to read her poetry to women's groups at women's bookstores, coffeehouses and feminist events.

Judy Grahn, a fellow poet and a personal friend, identifies Pat Parker's poetry as a part of the "continuing Black tradition of radical poetry".

Cheryl Clarke, another poet and peer, identifies her as a "lead voice and caller" in the world of lesbian poetry.

Designed to confront both black and women's communities with, as Clarke notes, "the precariousness of being non-white, non-male, non-heterosexual in a racist, misogynist, homophobic, imperial culture".

Clarke believes that Parker articulates "a black lesbian-feminist perspective of love between women and the circumstances that prevent our intimacy and liberation".

Parker and Audre Lorde first met in 1969 and continued to exchange letters and visits until Parker's death in 1989.

Their collaboration inspired many, including lesbian-feminist blues/R&B singer Nedra Johnson, whose song "Where Will You Be?"

has become something of a feminist anthem in the USA.

Audre Lorde and Pat Parker shared common themes within poetry they wrote as well.

Audre Lorde's piece "The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action" talks extensively about action through language, a similar concept seen in Pat Parker's "Where will you be".

Parker's elder sister, Shirley Jones, was shot and killed by her husband.

Pat Parker was asked by her father to take "the freedom train of education," Parker moved to Oakland California, in the early 1970s to pursue writing and potential opportunities for activist work.

She released five poetry collections: Child of Myself (1972), Pit Stop (1975), Movement in Black (1978), Woman Slaughter (1978), and Jonestown and Other Madness (1985).

Parker worked from 1978 to 1988 as the executive director of the Oakland Feminist Women's Health Center.

Pat Parker worked from 1978 to 1987 as a medical coordinator at the Oakland Feminist Women's Health Center, which Parker helped to expand.

Parker also participated in political activism and had early involvement with the Black Panther Party, Black Women's Revolutionary Council and formed the Women's Press Collective.

Parker participated in many forms of activism especially regarding gay and lesbian communities, domestic violence, and rights of people of color.

Parker wrote the autobiographical poem, Womanslaughter (1978), based on this event.

In 1979 she toured with the "Varied Voices of Black Women", a group of poets and musicians that included Linda Tillery, Mary Watkins, and Gwen Avery.

She founded the Black Women's Revolutionary Council in 1980, and she also contributed to the formation of the Women's Press Collective, as well as being involved in wide-ranging activism in gay and lesbian organizing.

(In an NEA application for 1988, Parker writes that she studied at San Francisco State University in Creative Writing but did not attain a degree.) She married playwright Ed Bullins in 1962.