Ode to Kathy

Women need to become literary “criminals”, break the literary laws and reinvent their own, because the established laws prevent women from presenting the reality of their lives.
(Kathy Acker, from Bodies Of Work)

Kathy Acker is my hero. She, in my opinion, is one of the greatest most revolutionary writers of the 20th century. Since discovering Blood and Guts in High School I have devoured all of her work, wrote my thesis on her, and have basically based most of my feminist theories on literature on her ideas.

So when my friend back home told me she was going to see a Kathy Acker documentary at the Melbourne International Film Festival I was dumbfounded. How had I not heard of this??? To make matters worse when I visited the film's website I saw that it had traveled through Seattle in May, while I was away.

Completely bummed.

Fingers crossed I can see it soon. She is god. Literally.

bitchin'

Check out my review of Kathy Acker's Blood and Guts in High School in Bitch Magazine's 'Shelf Lives' feature in the Winter 2008 issue, 'Lost and Found'.

Not only is it cool to be published in what I feel is the one of best magazines in print, I am honored to have written about one of the greatest writers of the 20th century, the late Kathy Acker.

I am working on self-publishing my thesis entitled 'Pussy Pirates Utopia: 21st Century Radical Literature: Lessons from Kathy Acker' in a zine format.

In it, I link Kathy Acker's literature with the theories of French feminist Helene Cixous, and the anti-psychology writers Deleuze and Guattari, to form what Pierre Joris calls: A nomadic poetics. I think these theories, as reflected in Kathy Acker's writing, show a way that literature in the 21st century can be a radical and anti-oppressive art form.

Write on!