John Philip Chapin: About Judy Grahn
Part of what I've done in this chapter is to argue that Judy Grahn's writing uses language in new ways to alter our possibilities for conceiving of the world. Her tools are part of a system of language that at present embodies detrimental social, cultural, and political relations; while recognizing language's complicity in oppression, she suggests that it can be used differently to provoke a rethinking and a reunderstanding of these social relations. For Grahn, as for other contemporary feminist and lesbian feminist poets, changing the language changes reality.