Joan Larkin

Background

Joan Larkin was born on April 16, 1939, in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, to George Joseph and Celia Gertrude (Rosenberg) Moffitt.

Education

In 1960, Joan received a Bachelor of Arts from Swarthmore College. In 1969, she received a Master of Arts from the University Arizona, and a Master of Fine Arts from Brooklyn College in 2005.

Career

After her graduation, Larkin taught English at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York from 1969 to 1994. While pursuing her teaching career, she also managed to help found the small press Out & Out in 1975. That same year, she produced her first poetry collection, Housework, and teamed up with Elly Bulkin in editing Amazon Poetry, a collection of poetry by lesbians.

Among Larkin’s ensuing works is A Woman like That: Lesbian and Bisexual Writers Tell Their Coming out Stories, a 1999 publication of autobiographical accounts centering on the disclosure of lesbianism. This book, on which Larkin served as editor, includes “First Love,” Karla Jay’s recollection of a notable summer at camp; “What Comes First,” Holly Hughes’ account of her attempt to attract another woman; and “Windows,” Judy Grahn’s recollection of discovering a neighbor’s lesbianism.

Larkin co-founded the independent press Out & Out Books. The editor of the anthology A Woman Like That: Lesbian and Bisexual Writers Tell Their Coming Out Stories (2000), she also edited, with Carl Morse, the anthology Gay and Lesbian Poetry in Our Time (1988) and, with Elly Bulkin, the anthologies Lesbian Poetry (1980) and Amazon Poetry (1975). Larkin has taught at many colleges and universities, including Drew University, Sarah Lawrence College, New England College, and Goddard College.

Achievements

• Joan Larkin is known as a poet and editor who has published various works on lesbianism and bisexuality.
  
  Larkin is the 2011 recipient of the Academy of American Poets Fellowship. In addition to the Lambda and Audre Lorde Awards, Larkin's honors include a nomination for a Publishing Triangle Award, a second Lambda Literary Award for nonfiction in 2000, and fellowships in poetry and playwriting from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Works

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  • Sor Juana's Love Poems

    (These exquisite love poems, some of them clearly addresse...)

    1997
  • Best Lesbian Erotica 2009

    (Winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Erotica in 2003 a...)

    2008
  • Glad Day Daily Affirmations: Daily Meditations for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender People

    (With this inspiring book of meditations, every day brings...)

    1998
  • A Woman Like That: Lesbian And Bisexual Writers Tell Their

    (The act of "coming out" has the power to transform every ...)

    1999
  • Lesbian Poetry: An Anthology

    (Pioneering anthology of lesbian poetry.)

    1981
  • My Body 2007
  • Cold River 1997
  • If You Want What We Have: Sponsorship Meditations 1998
  • Gay and Lesbian Poetry in Our Time 1988
  • Housework: Poems 1975
  • Blue Hanuman 2014
  • A Long Sound 1986

Views

Formally assured, frank, and often fearless, Larkin’s poems explore alcoholism, sexuality, and loss. Larkin’s poems stake out a territory of relentless self-examination, taking on love and death, family and sexuality in a voice that is unsentimental, ruthless and clear-eyed. This is poetry without pity, in which despair leads not to degradation but to a kind of grace.

Connections

On December 23, 1966, Joan married James A. Larkin, but they divorced in 1969. Joan has one child, Kate.

Father:

George Joseph Moffitt

Mother:

Celia Gertrude (Rosenberg) Moffitt

Daughter:

Kate Larkin

husband:

James A. Larkin