Identity Poetics: Race, Class, and the Lesbian-Feminist Roots of Queer Theory
Columbia University Press, 2001,
by Linda Garber

Identity Poetics traces the connections between queer theory and lesbian feminism, rejecting the either/or choice that promotes factionalism and obscures vital elements of lesbian history and activism. The connections between the two movements are illustrated primarily through the pivotal work of working-class/lesbians of color whose articulations of multiple, simultaneous identity positions and activist politics both belong to lesbian feminism and presage queer theory.
Identity Poetics includes a critical overview of recent historical writing about the women's and lesbian-feminist movements of the 1970s, discussion of the works of activist-poet-theorists Judy Grahn, Pat Parker, Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich, and Gloria Anzaldúa, and a final chapter on the rise and hegemony of queer theory within LGBT studies.

Linda Garber is associate professor in the Department of English and the Program for the Study of Women and Gender at Santa Clara University. She is the editor of Tilting the Tower: Lesbians / Teaching / Queer Subjects and the author of Lesbian Sources: A Bibliography of Periodical Articles, 1970-1990.