{{short description|Mohawk poet}} {{multiple| {{Overly detailed|date=April 2024}} {{One source|date=April 2024}} }} {{Infobox person | name = Beth Brant | birth_date = {{Birth date|1941|05|06}} | birth_place = Detroit, Michigan | death_date = {{Death date and age|2015|8|6|1941|05|06}} | death_place = Melvindale, Michigan | known_for = 6 publications based on experience with sexuality, abuse, growing up Native American, and Co-founding Turtle Grandmother manuscript publishing house }}
'''Beth E. Brant''', Degonwadonti,<ref name=":0" /> or Kaieneke'hak<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|title=Encyclopedia of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender History in America.|last=Brownlie|first=Robin Jarvis|publisher=Charles Scribner's Sons|year=2004|isbn=0-684-31261-1|editor-last=Stein|editor-first=Marc|location=Detroit, MI|pages=165–166|chapter=Brant, Beth E}}</ref> (1941–2015) was a Mohawk writer, essayist, and poet of the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte First Nation from the Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory in Ontario, Canada.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=Contemporary American Ethnic Poets: Lives, Works, Sources|publisher=Greenwood Press|year=2004|isbn=0-313-32484-0|editor-last=Cullum|editor-first=Linda|location=Westport, CT|pages=[https://archive.org/details/contemporaryamer0000unse/page/42 42–45]|chapter=Beth Brant (aka Degonwadonti): (1941- ) American Indian (Bay of Quinte Mohawk)|chapter-url-access=registration|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/contemporaryamer0000unse/page/42}}</ref><ref name=":1" /> She was also a lecturer, editor, and speaker. She wrote based on her deep connection to her people and touched on the infliction of racism and colonization.<ref name=":1" /> She brought her writing to life from her personal experiences of being a lesbian, having an abusive spouse, and her mixed heritage from having a Mohawk father and a Scottish-Irish mother.<ref name=":0" />
==Life== She was born in Detroit, Michigan on May 6, 1941.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /> Brant grew up off the reservation; however, she maintained a deep link to her Tyendinaga Mohawk heritage with her paternal grandparents where she learned the culture, language, and traditional stories. She was descended from a family of tribal leaders, including Chief Joseph Brant (Thayendanegea) and Molly Brant (Degonwadonti) from Tyendinaga.<ref name=":0" /> Her paternal grandparents moved to the Detroit area with the hope their nine children would have more opportunities away from the reservation. Her parents, Joseph and Hazel Brant, and her brother and sister, grew up in her paternal grandparent's Detroit home.<ref name=":1" /> Her father worked in an automobile factory, and later as a teacher.
At the age of 17, she left school.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2018-01-11 |title=Beth Brant |url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/beth-brant |access-date=2026-03-07 |website=The Poetry Foundation}}</ref> She went on to have three children named Kim, Jill, and Jennifer.<ref name=":0" /> After leaving her fourteen-year abusive marriage in 1973, Brant became active in the feminist community and came out as lesbian. She met her partner, Denise Dorsz, in 1976.<ref name=":1" /> They divided their time between in Michigan and Ontario.
In the initial years following her divorce, Brant worked any unskilled job she could to support her children, including working as a salesclerk, waitress, and cleaner.<ref name=":0" /> Her writing came later at the age of forty when she had a monumental experience on a trip through Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory with Dorsz.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Writer Beth Brant’s life celebrated – Anishinabek News |url=https://anishinabeknews.ca/2015/10/writer-beth-brants-life-celebrated/ |access-date=2026-03-07 |language=en-US}}</ref> An eagle flew in front of their car window while she was driving. The eagle landed on a nearby tree and Brant stopped the car to bear witness at the creature. They looked at one another and the nonverbal communication spoke to Brant. The eagle told her to start writing and thus her writing career began.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /> She displayed writing ranges of humorous to aggressive and intense to spiritual writing.
Her later years were spent as a grandmother and great-grandmother to three grandsons Nathaneal, Benjamin, and Zachary, a granddaughter, Olivia, as well as two great-grandchildren, Hazel and Luke. She died on August 6, 2015.
==Career== Beth Brant was published the first year she began officially writing. She was recognized by 1983 editors Adrienne Rich and Michelle Cliff from the lesbian periodical ''Sinister Wisdom,'' who asked Brant to edit a collection of Indigenous women's writing.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Enszer |first=Julie R. |date=2016-08-04 |title=What Remains: Remembering Michelle Cliff, Beth Brant, and Stephania Byrd |url=https://lambdaliterary.org/2016/08/what-remains-remembering-michelle-cliff-beth-brant-and-stephania-byrd/ |access-date=2026-03-07 |website=Lambda Literary Review |language=en-US}}</ref> This developed into ''A Gathering of Spirit'' (1988) where it, at first, was published in 1984 in ''Sinister Wisdom'' and then was reissued as a book many times.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /> It was the first anthology of Indigenous women's writing edited by an Indigenous woman.
Her success continued with publication of ''Mohawk Trail'' in 1985. This is a collection of short stories, poems, and creative nonfiction. Then, she continued the momentum in 1991 with ''Food and Spirits''. Her fiction embraces the themes of racism, colonialism, abuse, love, community, and what it means to be Native. ''Writing as Witness: Essays and Talk'', Brant's volume of essays, was published in 1994. The essays covered a range of subjects regarding the writer's craft and its meaning. In 2003, Brant continued with her second collection of essays called ''Testimony from the Faithful''.
Brant embraced her connection with other Mohawk people while working on ''Testimony from the Faithful'', and pursued her oral history as well.<ref name=":1" /> She edited a series of autobiographical stories told by the elders of the Tyendinaga Mohawk territory.<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal|last=Douglas|first=Carol Anne|date=1992|title=Beth Brant: Book & Spirits|journal=Off Our Backs|series=22|issue=9}}</ref> This was called ''I'll Sing 'Till the Day I Die: Conversations with Tyendinaga Elders'' and was published in 1995.<ref name=":2" /> This made a scholarly contribution to the continued growing of Aboriginal oral history. A year after, Brant and Sandra Laronde published a co-edited issue of the annual journal ''Native Women in the Arts'', called ''Sweetgrass Grows All Around Her''. Brant's writing continued to be published in anthologies and periodicals, particularly focused on Native, feminist, and lesbian perspectives.
==Activism and mentorship== Brant played a pivotal role as one of the first lesbian-identifying Native American writers in North America. Her work represents both her Native and lesbian sides.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /> She also valued being a mother and grandmother.<ref name=":0" /> She had few role models when she began writing and encouraged Native American women writers who succeeded her.<ref name=":1" /> Teaching and mentoring was a significant part in Brant's life, as she taught university classes on topics like colonialism, racism, sexism, homophobia, and the survival of Aboriginal peoples. She lectured at the University of British Columbia in 1989 and 1990 and guest lectured for classes in women's studies and Native American studies at the New College of the University of Toronto.<ref name=":0" /> Also, Brant lectured and read at universities and culture centres across North America.
Brant contributed to a number of creative writing workshops, including the Women of Colour Writing Workshop held in Vancouver in 1991, the 1991 Michigan Festival of Writers in East Lansing, the International Feminist Book Fair held in Amsterdam in 1992, and the Flight of the Mind Writing Workshop in Eugene, Oregon in 1992.<ref name=":0" /> In addition, she formed creative writing workshops and groups for Native American women, women in prison, and high school students. She has always looked for ways to help others express themselves. Brant participated in a project called Returning the Gift, which was designed to create new opportunities for Native writers to share their work. It included a 1992 meeting of 250 writers in Norman, Oklahoma, including various outreach programs and the formation of an organization called the Native Writers' Circle of the Americas.
In 1982, she and Denise Dorsz founded Turtle Grandmother Books,<ref name=":0" /> a clearinghouse for manuscripts by Native American women and a source of information about Native women.<ref>Brady, Maureen, et al. “Interview: TURTLE GRANDMOTHER BOOKS.” Off Our Backs, vol. 12, no. 11, 1982, pp. 18–31. {{JSTOR|25774761}}.</ref> It lasted until 1987. She was also an AIDS activist, working with People with AIDS (PWA) and giving AIDS education workshops throughout Native communities.<ref name=":0" />
==Awards== * Creative Writing Award from the Michigan Council for the Arts (1984 and 1986) * National Endowment for the Arts (1991) * Canada Council Award in Creative Writing (1992)<ref>{{Cite book |last=Juricek |first=Kay |url=http://archive.org/details/contemporarynati0000juri |title=Contemporary Native American authors: A Biographical Dictionary |date= |publisher=Fulcrum Pub. |others= |year=1997 |isbn=978-1-55591-917-7 |location=Golden, Colorado}}</ref> * Affirmations Community Heritage Awards (1995)
==Memberships== * National Writers Union (United States and Canada) * Native Circle of Writers of the Association * North American Indian Association * Lesbians and Gays of the First Nations * Turtle Clan
==Selected works==
===Books=== * ''Mohawk Trail''. Ithaca, NY: Firebrand Books, 1985. * ''Food & Spirits''. Ithaca, NY: Firebrand Books, 1991. * ''A Generous Spirit: Selected Works by Beth Brant'', edited by Janice Gould. Dover, FL: Inanna Publications, 2019.
===Anthologies=== * ''A Gathering of Spirit: A Collection by North American Women''. Editor. Ithaca, NY: Firebrand Books, 1988. * ''I'll Sing `til the Day I Die: Conversations with Tyendinaga Elders''. Toronto: McGilligan Books, 1995. * ''Writing as Witness: Essay and Talk''. Toronto: Women's Press, 1994.
===Additional works=== * "Grandmothers of a New World." ''Women of Power'' 16 (Spring 1990): 40-47. * "Giveaway: Native Lesbian Writers." ''Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society'' 18 (Summer 1993): 944-947. * "The Good Red Road." ''American Indian Culture and Research Journal'' 21.1 (1997): 193-206.
===Anthologies where writing appears=== * Barrington, Judith, ed. ''An Intimate Wilderness: Lesbian Writers on Sexuality''. Portland, OR: Eighth Mountain Press, 1991. * Bruchac, Joseph, ed. ''New Voices from the Longhouse: An Anthology of Contemporary Iroquois Writing''. Greenfield Center, NY: Greenfield Review Press, 1989. * Bruchac, Joseph, ed. ''Songs from This Earth on Turtle's Back: Contemporary American Indian Poetry''. Greenfield Center, NY: Greenfield Review Press, 1983. * ''Dykewords: An Anthology of Lesbian Writing''. Ed. Lesbian Writing and Publishing Collective. Toronto: Women's Press, 1990. * Piercy, Marge, ed. ''Early Ripening: Poetry by Women''. New York, Pandora Books, 1987. * Roscoe, Will, ed. ''Living the Spirit: A Gay American Indian Anthology''. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1988.
==External links== {{Wikiquote}} *[https://www.goodreads.com/author/list/321087.Beth_Brant Goodreads page]
==References==
===Citations=== <references />
==Bibliography== * "Beth Brant (aka Degonwadonti)" ''Contemporary American Ethnic Poets''. Ed. Linda Cullum. Westport: Greenwood Press, 2004. 42-5. Print. * Brownlie, Robin Jarvis. "Brant, Beth E." ''Encyclopedia of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered History in America.'' Ed. Marc Stein. Vol. 1. Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2004. 165-6. ''Gale Virtual Reference Library''. Web. 20 May 2016. * Douglas, Carol Anne. "Beth Brant: Book & Spirits." ''Off Our Backs'' 22.9 (1992): 1. ProQuest. Web. 20 May 2016.
==Further reading== * Bruchac, Carol, Linda Hogan, and Judith McDaniel. ''The Stories We Hold Secret: Tales of Women's Spiritual Development''. Greenfield Review Press, 1986. * Day, Francis Ann. ''Lesbian and Gay Voices: An Annotated Bibliography and Guide to Literature for Children and Young Adults.'' Greenwood Press, 2000. * Cullum, Linda. "Survival's Song: Beth Brant and the Power of the Word." ''MELUS: The Journal of the Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States'' 24.3 (Fall 1999): 129-140. * ''Feminist Writers''. Toronto: St. James Press, 1996. * Petrone, Penny. ''Native Literature in Canada: From the Oral Tradition to the Present''. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1990. * ''Smoke Rising: The Native North American Literary Companion''. Ed. Janet Witalec and Sharon Malinowski. Detroit, MI: Visible Ink Press, 1995. * {{cite book |last1=Tyrkus |first1=Michael J |title=Gay & lesbian biography |date=1997 |publisher=St. James Press |isbn=9781558622371 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/gaylesbianbiogra0000unse/page/393 393-394] |url=https://archive.org/details/gaylesbianbiogra0000unse/page/393 }}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Brant, Beth}} Category:1941 births Category:2015 deaths Category:20th-century American poets Category:20th-century American women poets Category:20th-century Canadian poets Category:20th-century Canadian women poets Category:20th-century Canadian women writers Category:20th-century First Nations writers Category:20th-century Haudenosaunee people Category:21st-century American women writers Category:21st-century Canadian LGBTQ people Category:21st-century Canadian poets Category:21st-century Canadian women poets Category:21st-century First Nations writers Category:21st-century Haudenosaunee people Category:American lesbian writers Category:American LGBTQ poets Category:American Mohawk people Category:American non-binary writers Category:American people of Scotch-Irish descent Category:Canadian lesbian writers Category:Canadian LGBTQ poets Category:Canadian Mohawk poets Category:Canadian Mohawk women writers Category:Canadian Mohawk writers Category:Canadian non-binary writers Category:Canadian people of Ulster-Scottish descent Category:First Nations LGBTQ people Category:First Nations women writers Category:LGBTQ people from Michigan Category:Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte people Category:Non-binary lesbians Category:Poets from Michigan Category:Turtle Clan of the Haudenosaunee Category:Two-spirit people Category:Writers from Detroit