Beatrix Gates’ The Burning Key, New & Selected Poems (1973-2023), Thera Books, features new & uncollected poetry, letterpress editions, award-winning translations and selections from seven books, including Lambda Literary Award Poetry Finalist In the Open.
Gates designed & printed her first book, native tongue, in 1973 in a letterpress edition under the hopalong press imprint and a few years later, founded Granite Press (1975-1989) in Penobscot, Maine as poet/printer, Book Artist and lesbian feminist publisher. She has participated in building three printshops and moving equipment with the help of friends into a barn in Monterey, Massachusetts; the old Post Office in Hancock, Maine; and longest-lived, into the old Cannery in South Penobscot, Maine. Gates designed and printed her second book, Shooting at Night, at Granite Press, supported by the Maine Arts Commission. Gates entered trade publishing as an indy publisher with Grace Paley’s first book of poetry, Leaning Forward, followed by Joan Larkin’s A Long Sound, the bilingual IXOK AMAR.GO, Central American Women Poets for Peace (ed. Angelsey) and letterpress editions by Rosa Lane and Jean Valentine. In 2020, Artifact Press published Gates’ desire lines, addressing forced and chosen migration, as a letterpress limited edition with prints on hand-made paper by poet/artist Heidi Reszies who Gates connected with at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts over a Vandercook proof press in Jen Bervin’s “Tactile Notations” workshop.
As poet, activist and publisher, Gates values working in community and has collaborated with many artists who enjoy the act of play. She continues to promote poetry in community settings and has collaborated on “Poetry & Masks” with weaver/ farmer/ gay activist Ron King for the Farm/Arts Exchange at Reversing Falls Sanctuary. During the Pandemic, Gates led “Reading Poetry Together” sharing works of poetry and prose online by former Poet Laureate and performer Joy Harjo of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation; Mary Oliver; Walt Whitman; and Pablo Neruda in translation through her local library. She curates SIDELINES/ In Translation in more than one language at The Cannery in South Penobscot, Maine, where she serves on the Board and participated in Making the Archives Sing! Voicing Histories where she and Julia Bouwsma (current Maine Poet Laureate) shared poetry from invisible histories. Gates ran the Poetry Series at A Different Light Bookstore in NYC from 1990 to 1996, the oldest lgbtq bookstore in the US, highlighting emerging & published poets and honoring Essex Hemphill, Audre Lorde and Muriel Rukeyser.
A member of the storied Goddard MFA faculty for many years, Gates has taught writing and literature in graduate and undergraduate programs at NYU; Bedford Hills Correctional facility; Borough of Manhattan Community College and City College in CUNY’s system; Maine Maritime Academy; Colby College and in urban and rural library and community settings. She holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and BA from Antioch College. She grew up in Boston with life-long roots in Maine, and she has had significant time in NYC and San Francisco. She lives in Down East Maine.
Short Bio
Beatrix Gates’ The Burning Key, New & Selected Poems (1973-2023), Thera Books, features new & uncollected poetry, letterpress editions, award-winning translations and selections from seven books, including Lambda Literary Award Finalist In the Open. Gates has been a fellow at MacDowell, Monson Arts, Ucross and the Huntington Library’s Jutzi Non-Traditional Scholar. She has been awarded a Maine Arts Commission Poetry Award, and shared NEA support, as librettist, for The Singing Bridge, music by Anna Dembska, Stonington Opera House. “Close Apart: Beatrix Gates, poetry, & Tim Seabrook, etchings,” featured in Matt Shaw’s documentary for Word., was funded by the Anahata Foundation. Electa Arenal and Gates shared a Witter Bynner Award for translating Jesús Aguado’s The Poems of Vikram Babu (HOST). Hybrid work appears in Jane Cooper: A Radiance of Attention and “For Orlando: Make Beautiful in Maine” (www.mapmagazine.co.uk). Anthologized in Gay & Lesbian Poetry in Our Time (St. Martin’s, 1988) and The World in Us: Lesbian & Gay Poetry of the Next Wave (St. Martin’s, 2000), Gates edited The Wild Good: Lesbian Photographs & Writings on Love (Anchor, 1996). Gates founded Granite Press (1975-1989) in Penobscot, Maine as poet, Book Artist and queer publisher and published Grace Paley’s Leaning Forward. She has collaborated on “Poetry & Masks” with weaver/gay activist Ron King at Reversing Falls Sanctuary and curates SIDELINES/ In Translation at The Cannery in South Penobscot, Maine where she serves on the Board. A member of the storied Goddard MFA faculty, Gates has taught writing in graduate and undergraduate programs and urban and rural community settings. She holds an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and BA from Antioch College. She lives in Maine.
Brooksville photos: O. Lange