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Happy 74th Birthday to Kate Millett

I have a brief post on my Tumblelog in honor of Kate Millett, an imperfect and, in many circles, all but forgotten feminist revolutionary here.

Here, also, is a photo of me with Kate in 1992:

Kate Millett and me on Bastille Day.

There’ll come a time when I’m ready to write much more about her. For now, suffice it to say that her memoir Flying, which I first read in 1990, changed my life, as did my time in 1992 at her art colony in Poughkeepsie, as did my visit with her in 1993 in St. Paul, Minnesota.

The latter segment of that story is the one that has proven most difficult for me to write, and I have only done so thus far in fragments. (Some fragments addressing that tumultuous period may be found here and here, although none address Millett’s influence specifically.)

Hopefully, I will get to assembling all those fragments while Kate is still alive.

Post a comment — Trackback URI RSS 2.0 feed for these comments This entry (permalink) was posted on Sunday, September 14, 2008, at 8:19 am by Victoria Marinelli. Filed in Images, Narrative, Sources and tagged .
  • Nancy McDowell
    Forgotten? Not by me she hasn't been. Someone who has been as formative as she has been throughout my adult life won't be forgotten. Sexual Politics is/was indeed a landmark, but Millett's other works -- writings, activities, art -- will stand all tests of time.

  • I'm always happy to hear about others who recognize her great legacy, and that she has not been "forgotten," as Salon.com described her here - http://salon.com/people/feature/1999/06/05/millet/ - in *all* circles.

    I have all of Kate's books as well as the biography focusing on her work as a sculptor. The woman is a force of nature, whose body of work will continue to be enormously influential, even when many who've ultimately benefited from her activism, writing and art still don't know so much as her name.
  • I adore Kate Millet and her book The Loony-Bin Trip about being bi-polar and her struggles with hospitals and lithium, while not generally talked about, was such a great thing for me to find and to read.
  • It was a valuable book for me too. Then in 1993 I had the experience of visiting her in St. Paul and having her A) scream at my girlfriend and me, calling us whores and the like; B) throwing furniture in my direction (which did not hit me, but did break apart on the floor), and C) finally slip from her drunken rage (e.g., she passed out on the floor).

    So it added, shall we say, a different perspective on the mental illness issue than that which I'd read in The Loony Bin Trip.
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