Deena Metzger
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Deena Metzger (born 1936) is an American writer, healer, and teacher whose work spans multiple genres including the novel, poetry, non-fiction, and plays. Metzger is a creative writing teacher and feminist scholar. In the 1960s and 1970s Metzger was a member of the Critical Studies faculty at the
California Institute of the Arts The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) is a Private university, private art school in Santa Clarita, California. It was incorporated in 1961 as the first degree-granting institution of higher learning in the US created specifically for ...
, taught English at
Los Angeles Valley College Los Angeles Valley College (LAVC, Valley College, or Valley) is a public community college in Los Angeles, California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, ...
, and was on the faculty of the Feminist Studio Worship. Metzger also founded the writing program at
Woman's Building The Woman's Building was a non-profit arts and education center located in Los Angeles, California. The Woman's Building focused on feminist art and served as a venue for the women's movement and was spearheaded by artist Judy Chicago, graphic de ...
in Los Angeles and was a contributing editor to ''Chrysalis: A Magazine of Women's Culture'' that ran from 1977 to 1980 in Woman's Building. Metzger is also known for her image in Hella Hammid's 1977 photograph, sometimes referred to as "The Warrior," or “Tree” poster, in which the post-
mastectomy Mastectomy is the medical term for the surgical removal of one or both breasts, partially or completely. A mastectomy is usually carried out to treat breast cancer. In some cases, women believed to be at high risk of breast cancer choose to have ...
Metzger stands in a celebratory pose. She first introduced and convened Daré, monthly gatherings for community and individual healing in 1999 and then ReVisioning Medicine in 2004. Her novel ''La Negra y Blanca'' won the 2012 Oakland Pen Award for Literature.


Early life and education

Deena Metzger was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1936 to Arnold and Bella Posy. She first attended college from 1953 to 1955 at
Brandeis University Brandeis University () is a Private university, private research university in Waltham, Massachusetts, United States. It is located within the Greater Boston area. Founded in 1948 as a nonsectarian, non-sectarian, coeducational university, Bra ...
. From 1955 to 1957 she attended
Brooklyn College Brooklyn College is a public university in Brooklyn in New York City, United States. It is part of the City University of New York system and enrolls nearly 14,000 students on a campus in the Midwood and Flatbush sections of Brooklyn as of fall ...
, where she became a co-editor of the Brooklyn College literary journal with Shela Pearl. She received an M.A. in English and American Literature and a Community College Teaching Certificate from UCLA. She received a PhD in Literature and Women's Culture from International College in 1975.


Career

In May 1969, Metzger was teaching an English class at
Los Angeles Valley College Los Angeles Valley College (LAVC, Valley College, or Valley) is a public community college in Los Angeles, California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, ...
and was fired for “immoral conduct” and “evident unfitness to teach” when teaching a unit applying Supreme Court decisions regarding literature and pornography. She subsequently brought the case to court and was reinstated in 1972. She also taught in the Critical Studies Department at the
California Institute of the Arts The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) is a Private university, private art school in Santa Clarita, California. It was incorporated in 1961 as the first degree-granting institution of higher learning in the US created specifically for ...
from 1970 to 1975. There she taught the first class in journal writing. In 1972, she spent time in Chile and was part of a film collective that made an early media response, the film pamphlet, "Chile with Poems and Guns, three months after the ". From 1973 to 1978 she was the director of the writing program for the
Woman's Building The Woman's Building was a non-profit arts and education center located in Los Angeles, California. The Woman's Building focused on feminist art and served as a venue for the women's movement and was spearheaded by artist Judy Chicago, graphic de ...
and the
Feminist Studio Workshop The Feminist Art Program (FAP) was a college-level art program for women developed in 1970 by artist Judy Chicago and continued by artists Rita Yokoi, Miriam Schapiro, and others. The FAP began at Fresno State College, as a way to address gender in ...
in Los Angeles. The Woman's Building was the first feminist institution of higher learning outside of a university. In 1977 she discovered she had breast cancer, and had a mastectomy. Later, she was photographed by Hella Hammid for a poster that showed her naked from the waist up, with a tattoo covering the scar from her mastectomy. This became known as the “Tree Poster” or the Warrior Poster, also called "I Am No Longer Afraid". Deena writes: She was co-editor of ''Intimate Nature: The Bond Between Women and Animals'', with Linda Hogan and Brenda Peterson, a critical text on animal intelligence and agency published in 1998, that speaks also to the profound knowledge that is gathered when relationships are intimate rather than alienated or objectified. In 1999, she visited with Nganga, healer, Augustine Kandenwa in Zimbabwe and afterwards introduced Daré, healing community, to North America. In 2004, her work as a healer took a new form when she initiated ReVisioning Medicine, an alliance between medical and medicine people to create a medicine that does no harm to humans or the earth. From 2004 to the present, she has collaborated with ''everyday gandhis,'' a grassroots, peacebuilding NGO in Liberia. She is also on the Faculty of the Kerulos Center. The Deena Metzger Literature of Restoration Fellowship at Mesa Refuge was offered to novelist Stan Rusworth in 2015.


Poster

'Tree, the mastectomy poster,' has been widely circulated and has appeared in various film and television documentaries, journals and newspapers including The Village Voice, Revolution Nursing Journal, Common Ground, the Detroit Metro Times, Our Bodies Our Selves, Women's Spirit Source Book and was the cover of the Oklahoma County Medical Society, April, 90. This photograph is canonized in the body of art made by breast cancer survivors. Photograph by Hella Hammid, words by Deena Metzger, poster design by Sheila Levrant de Bretteville. ( Wingbow Press, 1989). 24"x17". Inscription reads:


Awards

*The first Academic Freedom Award, the California Federation of Teachers, after being reinstated by a unanimous decision of the
Supreme Court of California The Supreme Court of California is the Supreme court, highest and final court of appeals in the judiciary of California, courts of the U.S. state of California. It is headquartered in San Francisco at the Earl Warren Building, but it regularly ...
to her tenured teaching position at Los Angeles Valley College from which Metzger had been fired in 1969. This decision was regarded as a significant victory for the cause of academic freedom. *Writing Fellowship the
National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the feder ...
, 1978 *First annual Vesta Award in Writing, the Woman's Building, Los Angeles,
, Woman's Building History Timeline,
1982 *"Two Writers in a Friendship of Unabashed Exposure: Barbara Myerhoff and Deena Metzger," Lilith, Volume 25, No. 2, Summer 2000. Winner Simon Rockower Award/
American Jewish Press Association The American Jewish Press Association (AJPA) is an organization of Jewish newspapers, magazines, journalists, and affiliated organizations in North America. Founded in 1944 by Gabriel Cohen as the Anglo-Jewish Publishers Association, AJPA awards t ...
, Excellence in Special Sections or Supplements Magazine, June 2001 *2012, PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award for her novel, “La Negra y Blanca” published by Hand to Hand, 2011, Oakland PEN.


Works


Books

* ''Skin:Shadows/Silence'', a novel, West Coast Poetry Review, 1976. * ''Dark Milk'', poetry, Momentum Press, Los Angeles, 1978. * ''The Axis Mundi Poems'', Jazz Press, Santa Cruz, 1981, . * ''Tree/The Woman Who Slept with Men to Take the War Out of Them'', Peace Press, 1981. Reprinted, Wingbow Press, 1983. * ''Looking For The Faces Of God'', poetry, Parallax Press, Berkeley, 1989, . * ''What Dinah Thought'', a novel, Viking/Penguin, 1989, . * ''A Sabbath Among The Ruins'', poetry, Parallax press, 1992, . * ''Writing For Your Life, A Guide And Companion To The Inner Worlds'',
Harper San Francisco HarperOne is a publishing imprint of HarperCollins, specializing in books that aim to "transform, inspire, change lives, and influence cultural discussions." Under the original name of Harper San Francisco, the imprint was founded in 1977 by 13 e ...
1992, Published in Italian as ''Scrivere Per Crescere'', Astrolabio, 1992. * ''Tree: Essays & Pieces'',
North Atlantic Books North Atlantic Books is a non-profit, independent publisher based in Berkeley, California, United States. Distributed by Penguin Random House Publisher Services, North Atlantic Books is a mission-driven social justice-oriented publisher. Founded ...
, 1997. (updated/expanded from 1981/1983 editions) Published in Italian as LINFA in 1978, La Salamandra, Milano. * ''Intimate Nature: The Bond Between Women & Animals'', co-edited with Linda Hogan and Brenda Peterson,
Ballantine Books Ballantine Books is a major American book publisher that is a subsidiary of German media conglomerate Bertelsmann. Ballantine was founded in 1952 by Ian Ballantine with his wife, Betty Ballantine. Ballantine was acquired by Random House in ...
, 1998. Paperback edition April 1999. * ''The Other Hand'',
Red Hen Press Red Hen Press is an American non-profit press located in Pasadena, California, and specializing in the publication of poetry, literary fiction, and nonfiction. The press is a member of the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses, and was a fin ...
, 2000. * ''Entering the Ghost River: Meditations on the Theory and Practice of Healing'', (non-fiction) Hand to Hand, 2001, * ''Doors: A Fiction For Jazz Horn'', Red Hen Press, 2005, * ''From Grief into Vision: A Council'', (non-fiction) Hand to Hand, 2006, * ''Ruin and Beauty: New and Selected Poems'', Red Hen Press, 2009, * ''Feral'', Hand to Hand, February, 2011, * ''La Negra y Blanca'', A Novel, Hand to Hand, June, 2011, * ''A Rain of Night Birds'', A Novel, Hand to Hand, April, 2017, * ''The Burden of Light'', Poetry, Hand to Hand, November, 2019 * ''La Vieja: A Journal of Fire'', A Novel, Hand to Hand, February, 2022,


Anthology publications

* ''The Awakened Warrior''; ed. by Rick Fields * ''A Casebook on Anais Nin'', ed. by Robert Zaller * ''Cradle and All, Women Writers on Pregnancy & Birth'', ed. by Laura Chester * ''Coming Into Our Fullness, Women Turning Forty'' by Cathleen Rountree; ''Deep Down'' * ''New Sensory Writing by Women'', ed. by Laura Chester * ''Dharma Gaia, A Harvest of Essays in Buddhism and Ecology'', ed. by Allan Hunt Badiner * ''Erotic By Nature'', ed. by David Steinberg * ''Grand Passion, The Poets of Los Angeles and Beyond'', ed. by Suzanne Lummis and Charles H. Webb * ''Gridlock: An Anthology of poetry about Southern California'', edited by Eliot Fried * ''Hear the Silence'', ed by Irene Zahava * ''Her Soul Beneath the Bone: Women's Poetry on Breast Cancer'', ed. by Leatrice Lifshitz * ''Invocation L.A. Urban Multicultural Poetry'', eds. Michelle T. Clinton, Sesshu Foster, Naomi Quinonez * ''Love Stories by New Women'', Charlene Swansea and Barbara Campbell * ''Meeting the Shadow'', ed. by Connie Zweig and Jeremiah Abrams * ''Nourishing the Soul'', ed. by Anne Simpkinson, Charles Simpkinson & Rose Solari * ''Ordinary Magic'', ed. by John Welwood * ''Pleasures The Erotic Edge, Erotica For Couples and Erotic Interludes'', ed. by Lonnie Barbach * ''Prayers For a Thousand Years'', edited by Elizabeth Roberts and Elias Amidon * ''Recollections of Anais Nin by Her Contemporaries'', ed. Benjamin Franklin V * ''Rising Tides'', ed. by Laura Chester and Sharon Barba * ''The Soul of Nature'', ed. by Michael Tobias and Georgianne Cowan * ''The Soul Unearthed'', ed. By Cass Adams * ''Storming Heaven's Gate: An Anthology of Spiritual Writings by Women'', ed by Amber Coverdale Sumrall and Patrice Vecchione * ''Stories of the Spirit, Stories of the Heart,'' ed. by Christina Feldman and Jack Kornfield * ''he Streets Inside: Ten Los Angeles Poets'', ed. by Bill Mohr * ''Stubborn Light, The Best of the Sun, Volume III'', ed. By Sy Safransky * ''To Be a Woman'', ed. by Connie Zweig * ''Touching Fire'', eds. Louise Thornton, Jan Sturtevant & Amber Coverdale Sumrall * ''Visionary Voices'', ed. by Penny Rosenwasser * ''The Well of Creativity'' interviews by Michael Toms with Hay House * ''Word of Mouth, 150 Short-Short Stories by 99 Women Writers'', ed. Irene Zahava * ''Revamping the World, On the Return of the Holy Prostitute'', first published by the Utne Review has been widely circulated and reprinted in dozens of journals.


Audiotapes

* ''This Body/My Life'',
Sounds True Sounds True is an American multimedia publishing company founded in 1985 by Tami Simon. The company is based in Louisville, Colorado. The company has published over 800 spoken-word audio and music recordings, books, multimedia learning resources ...
* ''The Book Of Hags'', produced by KPFK for Pacifica and issued by Black Box. * ''Breaking The Silence: Jewish Feminists Tell Their Stories'', produced by Naomi Newman of the Traveling Jewish Theatre. From the Series Heart of Wisdom as broadcast on American Public Radio. * ''The Creative Use of Imagination in Healing in Cancer As A Turning Point'', Sounds True.


Drama, video and theatre productions

* Co-writer and co-producer the hour-long documentary film ''Chile: With Poems and Guns'', 1973. * Writer associate of Barbara Myerhoff of the Department of Visual Anthropology at the University of Southern California on the cultural video gerontology project, ''Life Not Death In Venice''. * Barbara Myerhoff, (2007), Stories as Equipment for Living, edited by Marc Kaminsky, Deena Metzger, and Marc Weiss, with an Introduction by
Thomas R. Cole Thomas R. Cole (born March 15, 1949) is a writer, historian, filmmaker, and gerontologist. He is currently the Director of thCenter for Spiritual Direction at CongregationJack Kugelmass, University of Michigan Press. * Theatre production ''Not As Sleepwalkers'' directed by Jeremy Blahnik, Los Angeles 1977. Theatre production * ''Dreams Against The State'', directed by Steven Kent, n private homes, churches, community houses,Los Angeles 1981. Seven Stages, Atlanta 1986. La Verne University, CA, January 2005. * Staged reading ''The Woman Who Slept With Men To Take The War Out Of Them'' Toronto and Montreal 1985. * ''How Will I Survive: A Documentary about Breast Cancer'', video, directed by Johanna Dematrakis, produced by Marc Harris, Goal Productions 1993.


References


External links

* * Post-doom conversation with Michael Dowd, 2022, VIDEO on youtube, 56 minutes. {{DEFAULTSORT:Metzger, Deena 1936 births Living people 20th-century American novelists 20th-century American poets 20th-century American women writers 21st-century American essayists 21st-century American novelists 21st-century American poets 21st-century American women writers Activists from California American feminist writers American spiritual writers American women essayists American women novelists American women poets Brandeis University alumni Brooklyn College alumni California Institute of the Arts faculty Jewish American novelists Jewish American poets Jewish American feminists Jewish women writers PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award winners University of California, Los Angeles alumni Writers from Los Angeles 20th-century American Jews 21st-century American Jews