kari edwards: NO GENDER (Belladonna)

kari edwards (1954 - 2006) was a poet, artist and gender activist, her work has appeared in numerous publications, and inspired others. This anthology follows her mandate of reclaiming the very words we speak and write, beginning with our authorial name:

"kari’s authorial “signature” undid the authorial body in favor of a visible obfuscation—strikethru: kari never just signed, but rather crossed out hir name and wrote “NO GENDER.” The erasure—well no, the palimpsestic remaking of the name into a symbol for the dismantling of enforced gender codes is a profound and provocative gesture—the name is still visible behind the NO GENDER, as if behind bars... kari’s genius moved others to their own words, art, action—following a mandate of reclaiming the very words we speak and write—writing our selves, our other(ed) bodies, into a foundational postgender post-genre state. This book is the start of what hopefully will be a much longer conversation." - by Julian T. Brolaski & erica kaufman

With contributions from Cara Benson, Frances Blau, Mark Brasuell, Julian T. Brolaski, Reed Bye, Marcus Civin, CAConrad, Donna de la Perrière, E. Tracy Grinnell, Rob Halpern, Jen Hofer, Brenda Iijima, Lisa Jarnot, erica kaufman, Kevin Killian, Wendy Kramer, Joseph Lease, Rachel Levitsky, Joan MacDonald, Bill Marsh, Chris Martin, Yedda Morrison, Eileen Myles, Akilah Oliver, Tim Peterson, Ellen Redbird, Leslie Scalapino, Michael Smoler, Sherman Souther, Eleni Stecopoulos, and Anne Waldman

kari edwards: NO GENDER is a Venn Diagram Production, which is the collaborative intersection between Belladonna Books and Litmus Press. This imprint actualizes the mutual commitment to publishing innovative, cross-genre, multicultural, feminist, and queer work by writers and artists working beyond and between borders.

About Belladonna
Founded as a reading and salon series by Rachel Levitsky at Bluestocking's Women's Bookstore on New York City's Lower East Side in 1999, Belladonna so far has featured over 150 writers of wildly diverse age and origin, writers who work in conversation and collaboration in and between multiple forms, languages, and critical fields. As performance and as printed text, the work collects, gathers over time and space, and forms a conversation about the feminist avant-garde, what it is and how it comes to be.
This year marks the tenth anniversary of Belladonna's mission to promote the work of women writers who are adventurous, experimental, politically involved, multi-form, multicultural, multi-gendered, impossible to define, delicious to talk about, unpredictable, and dangerous with language. Forhtcoming: The Wide Road by Lyn Hejinian & Carla Harryman

kari edwards: NO GENDER
Reflections on the Life & Work of kari edwards
Edited by Julian T. Brolaski, erica kaufman, and E. Tracy Grinnell
204 pages, $18
ISBN: 978-0-9819310-1-2