For the Hard Ones: A Lesbian Phenomenology/Para Las Duras: Una Fenomenologia Lesbiana

by Tatiana de la Tierra

Para las duras: Una fenomonologia lesbiana / For the Hard Ones: A Lesbian Phenomenology, originally published in 2002, is a collection of poetry existing from and beyond the boundaries of language, sexuality, and genre. Each memory, meditation, analysis, and erotic snapshot—featured side-by-side in both English and Spanish—is overlaid with the sexual character, experimental prose, and levity signature to the work of de la tierra. As a bilingual book, For the Hard Ones: A Lesbian Phenomenology / Para las duras: Una fenomonologia lesbiana centers, explores, and reimagines queer Latina sexuality, opening up space for multiple interpretations and transformations. This new edition, published as the sixth Sapphic Classic from Sinister Wisdom and A Midsummer Night’s Press, features an introduction by scholars Olga García Echeverría and Maylei Blackwell, a foreword by Myriam Gurba, an essay on de la tierra’s periodicals by Sara Gregory, and a tribute to de la tierra by her mother, proving a vibrant context for contemporary engagements with de la tierra’s powerful and important work.

Genres: Poetry, Lesbian, LGBT, Queer, Erotica, Queer Studies

144 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[fausto · Rating 5 out of 5]

tatiana de la tierra was one of the most powerful feminist poets of this century, her work is such a beautiful chant to all lesbianas duras and sinvergüenzas :)

[E. V. Gross · Rating 4 out of 5]

While there are certainly terms and sentiments in this collection that are dated and essentialist, I also found—and continue to find of the lesbian poetry of this generation—something so invigorating and powerful about these poems. A brashness, a confidence, a sexiness, a boldness, a fearlessness, a tenderness, an earnestness, an honesty. For so much of my life, I had been scared to even say the word "lesbian" out loud, let alone identify with it. And yet, here it is in print a thousand times, again, and again, and again. We owe a great deal to our forebears and ancestors and how their words have and continue to speak us into existence.*

*Though, I am also very glad that language and identity continue to evolve. Two things can be true at once, I guess.

[clara · Rating 5 out of 5]

i feel like my identity is heavily intertwined with tatiana’s. a lesbian latina born in villavicencio colombia who then moved to miami florida? this book could not be more perfect for me. if only i’d read this when i was younger, it would have guided me when questioning my sexuality, identity, beliefs, morals… the perfect book.

[Sal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a soul-nurturing book, I’m not sure if I could love tatiana de la tierra any more after reading this and the tributes of those she touched.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just finished reading For the Hard Ones: A Lesbian Phenomenology by tatiana de la tierra, a fantastic collection of poems (prose poems? a manifesto [sic]? a "wishful thinking"? tatiana de la tierra admits herself that it is hard to classify this book [65]). More accurately, I read half of the book, for the poems are in one half English, and in the opposite half (the flip side of the book), Spanish. I do not know Spanish well enough to read through a collection of poetry and understand it, so I only read the English.

I found tatiana de la tierra's poetry bold, refreshing, and erotic. Sometimes I cringed at the way that she portrays lesbianism as automatically subversive, as automatically an authoring of the self outside of societal scripts. But this is a minor point, because I think most of her poetry conveys powerful understanding/insights into the discourse of sexuality/sexualized bodies.

de la tierra writes often of naming — including the naming of oneself. To name oneself as a lesbian, she writes, is "to speak the truth":

to speak the truth—I am a lesbian—is to name the imprint that being a lesbian leaves. as a consequence, there is no space for questioning. no one will ask: is she?

to silence or deny the truth is to leave a trail of lies. people will surely ask: is she? (27)

Lesbian for de la tierra is about a re-scripting: rejecting the scripting that most people take for granted and follow without criticizing and writing one's own script. Though, as I alluded to above, I find the "writing one's own script" somewhat problematic, I also find the way de la tierra describes this process, this reclamation of the self... well, poetic.

This passage that I just quoted, I believe, serves to help understand the marking of sexualities, the interpellation of bodies: even if one does not claim the word "lesbian," one is marked and read as such, and questioned and called such. Announcing oneself as "lesbian" (or gay, trans, queer, faggot, and so on?) is, as has often been noted, a speech act. But here we see it is not just a statement of "I am," but also a statement of impact: "I am impacting you." I am not sure if I agree with "truth" and "lies," or even the desire for "no space for questioning," but I do agree with her portrayal of self-naming as "imprinting" on others.

As de la tierra writes later:

each person who sees a lesbian is marked: lesbians leave their footprint on other people's faces. (47)