*When I was growing up, I hated poetry. I thought it was just men writing about nature, and what I wanted to do was be in the city and meet women writing about everything else. Then I met the usual gateway poets, Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath, and began to see that poetry could be a vehicle for anger, horror, and even wit. Which is why I love Anna Pulley’s new book,​* (1)+Anna+Pulley&linkCode=sl1&tag=lennyletter-20&linkId=2a93e4857ce1695faa925cc51f5796a2)*​. It’s as casual and funny as a conversation with your best friend, if your best friend happens to speak in haikus and wants to tell you all about lesbian sex. Here’s an excerpt, which includes not just one but three perfect haikus about Gertrude Stein.*
*—Mikki Halpin, Lenny editor at large*
|||Kelsey Beyer
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IMAGINED AWKWARD PROPOSITIONS FROM FAMOUS QUEER WOMEN THROUGHOUT HISTORY
**Gertrude Stein** A lesbian is a lesbian is a lez who’s BI-AN me drinks.
**Gertrude Stein tries again** A rose is a rose is a Rose who rose from the bar to buy me drinks.
**Gertrude Stein gets to second base** Where? *There*? You want me to touch you there? But my dear, there is no there there.
**Billie Jean King** Love *love*! … Wait, come back!It’s a tennis term meaning no one has scored. Oh.
**Sappho** My muse! My favorite … Aphrodite? … Airlea? Ai … think I love you?
**Georgia O’Keeffe** Here, I made you this flower painting. It’s symbolic! Of your … beauty.
**Audre Lorde** Eating bananas is nice, but how about we put them in your vag?
**Susan Sontag** Sex is a pillow— an extension of the self. Yet suffocating.
**Susan Sontag tries again** Would you like to talk obscure French theory with me? I hate myself.
**Willa Cather** There is nothing but the land. We are all dirt, so shall we lie in it?
**Willa Cather keeps going** I would plough you like the godly red heaven that is Nebraska soil.
**Virginia Woolf** When I said I want “a room of my own,” I meant “when my husband’s here.”
**Frida Kahlo** *Te adoro!* Here’s a painting of me beingcruelly tortured.
​
1) (http://www.amazon.com/Lesbian-Sex-Haiku-Book-Cats/dp/1250072646/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&qid=1460148059&sr=8-1&keywords=The+Lesbian+Sex+Haiku+Book+(with+Cats!)
