# data[].attributes.headline
Twenty One Love Poems (Poem II) by Adrienne Rich

# data[].attributes.subject
Twenty One Love Poems (Poem II) by Adrienne Rich

# data[].attributes.body
Adrienne Rich’s collection of Twenty-One Love Poems are all tender and passionate representations of lesbian love and longing, while also revealing the hardships and difficulties of being in queer relationships when they are not considered the norm in a heretonormative society. Poem II in this collection stuck out to me because of Rich’s unique use of language, punctuation, and enjambment. Her lines “I dreamed you were a poem,//I say, A poem I wanted to show someone…//and I laugh and fall dreaming again//of the desire to show you to everyone I love,//to move openly together” are bittersweet and mournful, grieving the ability to display and celebrate her love outwardly. This poem, and all of Adrienne Rich’s work, was imperative and incredibly influential because of her complex and beautiful depiction of lesbian experiences and love.

https://poets.org/poem/twenty-one-love-poems-poem-ii

# data[].attributes.body
Alison Bechdel’s comic Fun Home is her autobiographical account of her early life and complex relationship with her family. Although it is a comic, and not a traditional written novel, Bechdel manages to discuss themes of identity, familial dysfunction, abuse, and mental health struggles and revolves around Bechdel’s challenging relationship with her closeted queer father as well as Bechdel’s relationship with literature; which is referenced and alluded too throughout the book. Fun Home is a complex novel, and its structure reflects that: it is not chronological but by jumping between moments in Bechdel’s life, creates parallels between her childhood diary, her later life and her father’s life. Bechdel portrays her own experience as a lesbian and her journey with self-discovery, as well as some of the unique generational effects that her father’s closeted identity and repression had on her.

# data[].attributes.body
Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg is a piece of fiction depicting the lives of queer women in the 1950s, told through the eyes of a butch lesbian named Jess. This book celebrates lesbian culture and lesbian love, but is also a brutal and accurate depiction of how painful living outside of gender norms in McCarthy Era United States. What stands out to me about this book is how it gives a voice to butch and gender-non-conforming women, whose stories and experiences are often overlooked or excluded from narratives centering around lesbians or queer women. Feinberg sheds light on the sexual assault and abuse many butch and lesbian women endured, their unique experience with gender and society, and the economic and social struggles that came with their identities and gender presentation, considering that many of the women were blue collar workers and faced discrimination and harrassent at work. Additionally, it highlights queer women’s contributions to social and political movements, to which they have been imperative. From the Suffrage movement, to Vietnam Peace protests to the fight for women’s reproductive rights; queer women’s crucial role is often overlooked, so it is incredible that Stone Butch Blues illustrates and celebrates these contributions, as well as the powerful community that is present among queer women.

# data[].attributes.body
In each of these pieces, the women struggle with societal perceptions of their love, presentation, and/or identity. How do you think that social perception affects someone's perception of themselves? How might this be challenging for someone with intersectional identities, or how has it affected you?