Chrystos - Poetry

Chrystos, a writer and artist, has been a Bainbridge resident for decades.  She identifies with her father's Native American ancestry, a background that is an essential part of her writing.  The other dominant aspect of her work is her identity as a lesbian.  Works by Chrystos include Not Vanishing (1988), Dream On (1991), In Her I Am (1993), Fugitive Colors (1995), and Fire Power (1995).  She is also co-editor of Best Lesbian Erotica 1999.  Her poems have appeared in a number of anthologies and she was the winner of the Audre Lorde International Poetry Competition in 1994 and the Sappho Award of Distinction from the Astraea National Lesbian Action Foundation in 1995.  A reader says of Chrytos' book Fire Power: "This book is funny, sharp, and coarsely textured. Chrystos' voice is strong enough to engage every subject with an intensity that is hard to resist. Her love poetry sweats off the page with a passionate, blushing intimacy. Her political poems reveal the absurdly enormous gap between rich and poor, racism that has become so ingrained it hurts to realize it, and the artifice of cities, organizations, and movements that forget individuals, nature, values...life." For more information on Chrystos go to http://voices.cla.umn.edu/artistpages/chrystos.php.