Minnie Bruce Pratt

Poet

Syracuse, NY
New York US
Email: 
mbpratt@earthlink.net
Website: 
minniebrucepratt.net
Twitter/X: 
@MBPratt

Author's Bio

Writer-activist Minnie Bruce Pratt entered political life as part of Women’s Liberation in North Carolina in 1975. Pratt co-authored Yours in Struggle: Three Feminist Perspectives on Anti-Semitism and Racism in 1984 with Elly Bulkin and Barbara Smith, who was also a member of the Combahee River Collective. Pratt’s book of poetry, Crime Against Nature, about her relationship as a lesbian mother with her sons, was chosen by the Academy of American Poets for the 1989 Lamont Poetry Award. Her 2011 book, Inside the Money Machine, inspired by the Communist Manifesto, received the Publishing Triangle’s Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry. Magnified, her latest book, is dedicated in memoriam to her partner and spouse, trans activist and historian, Leslie Feinberg (Wesleyan Poetry Series, 2021). She was a Managing Editor of Workers World newspaper. More at www.minniebrucepratt.net. Pratt died at the age of seventy-six on July 2, 2023.

Publications & Prizes

Anthologies:
Poets Against the War, ed. Sam Hamill (Thunder's Mouth Press, 2003)
,
Poems for America, ed. Carmela Ciuraru (Scribner, 2002)
,
Columbia Anthology of Contemporary Poetry by American Women (Columbia University Press, 2000)
,
The World in Us: Lesbian and Gay Poetry of the Next Wave (St. Martin's Press, 2000)
,
Fifty Years of American Poetry (Academy of American Poets, 1996)
,
Chloe Plus Olivia: Lesbian Literature, ed. Lillian Faderman (Columbia University Press, 1994)
,
No More Masks, ed. Florence Howe (Harper Perennial, 1993)
,
Gay and Lesbian Poetry in Our Time, ed. Morse and Larkin (St. Martin's Press, 1988)
,
Lesbian Poetry, ed. Elly Bulkin and Joan Larkin (Persephone Press, 1981)
Books:
Inside the Money Machine (Carolina Wren Press, 2011)
,
The Dirt She Ate: Selected and New Poems (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003)
,
The Money Machine (Belladonna Books, 2003)
,
Walking Back Up Depot Street (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1999)
,
S/HE (Firebrand Books, 1995)
,
Rebellion: Essays 1980-1991 (Firebrand Books, 1992)
,
Crime Against Nature (Firebrand Books, 1990)
,
We Say We Love Each Other (Firebrand Books, 1985)
,
Yours in Struggle: Three Feminist Perspectives on Anti-Semitism and Racism (Firebrand Books, 1984)
,
The Sound of One Fork (Night Heron Press, 1981)
Journals:
American Poetry Review
,
American Voice
,
Arts & Letters
,
Bloom
,
Columbia Review
,
Conditions
,
Feminary
,
Gargoyle Magazine
,
Gay Community News
,
Harvard Gay & Lesbian Review
,
Hungry Mind Review
,
Ikon
,
New England Review
,
Out/Look
,
Ploughshares
,
Prairie Schooner
,
Progressive
,
River Styx
,
TriQuarterly
,
Village Voice
,
Wisconsin Review
,
Women's Review of Books
Prizes won: 

Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry by The Publishing Triangle, Inside the Money Machine

Lambda Literary Award in Lesbian Poetry, The Dirt She Ate

 

 The Lucille Medwick Memorial Award, Poetry Society of America, “Picking Up a Job Application”

Best Gay and Lesbian Book of the Year by ForeWord: Magazine of Independent Bookstores and Booksellers,  Walking Back Depot Street

 

The Larry Levis Prize for Poetry, and nominated for a Pushcart Prize, for a group of poems published in Prairie Schooner

Outstanding Book Award, The Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Human Rights in the U.S.,  Rebellion: Essays 1980-1991

American Library Association Gay and Lesbian Book Award in Literature, Crime Against Nature

 

The Lamont Poetry Selection of The Academy of American Poets, Crime Against Nature

                                    Crime Against Nature

Watch

More Information

Prefers to work with: 
Any
Born in: 
Selma, AL
Alabama
Raised in: 
Centreville, AL
Alabama
Please note: All information in the Directory is provided by the listed writers or their representatives.
Last update: Aug 04, 2023