Judy Grahn Receives Demeter Award for leadership in women’s spirituality
This year the ASWM Board of Directors has chosen to grant the Demeter Award for Leadership in Women’s Spirituality to two outstanding women, in recognition of their lifetime achievements in forging new paths for women. Dr. Judy Grahn is this year’s recipient, along with Vicki Noble.
The award is given to Dr. Grahn in recognition of her decades of writing, activism, visionary scholarship and leadership as a founding mother of feminist philosophy, literature, theory and poetry in action. As an internationally celebrated poet, author, mythologist, cultural theorist, teacher, she exemplifies tireless intellectual leadership in poetic expression of feminist ethical and spiritual values, and wide-ranging contributions to feminist infrastructure and culture.
Judy’s poetry has fueled both the Feminist and Lesbian-Feminist movements, in the US and numerous other countries through such works as the mythic-history Another Mother Tongue (1984, 1991) which was vital to the Lesbian/Gay movement during the 1980s and 1990s. We honor her poetic growth through Lesbian literary activism to encompass women’s spirituality – acknowledging the inseparability of feminist politics and women’s spirituality. Her work has resulted in fourteen published books with two more in process, including two book-length poems, several poetry collections, a reader, an ecotopian novel, and five non-fiction books.
In other foundational contributions, an award in her name is given every year to a notable Lesbian author. ASWM joins the many other organizations honoring her significant contributions; she has received over twenty awards, including Lifetime Achievement Awards from Triangle Publishing, Golden Crown Trailblazers Award, and San Francisco Gay Pride Parade Lifetime Achievement Grand Marshall, 2014 as well as two Lambda Literary Awards, two American Book Awards, a Foremothers of Women’s Spirituality Award, a Stonewall Award, and a National Endowment for the Arts Award.
In recent works such as Simple Revolution: the Making of an Activist Poet (memoir), 2012; her poetry as the subject of a dedicated issue of The Journal of Lesbian Studies; and the collection, love belongs to those who do the feeling, 2008, she particularly draws forth women’s power to see and change the course of their lives and society. We also look forward to Judy’s upcoming book of poetry: Living in a Sentient World, which, no doubt, will continue to advance her vision of a more egalitarian and peaceful world.
Read our 2020 Demeter Award letter and learn more about Judy’s current work at judygrahn.org
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