- Elsa Gidlow (b. 1898, Yorkshire, England) is a poet-philosopher who lives in Northern California amid the giant Redwoods. She grew up in a French-Canadian village on Montreal Island and is mainly self-educated. Her poetry, widely recognized since her early twenties, reflects the lesbian and feminist principles by which she has always lived. An early highlight was the publication in 1923 of On a Gray Thread, the first North American book of poetry to celebrate love between women. In 1924 she made California her home, arriving via the Panama Canal. She thereafter led the lean, precarious career of a freelance journalist, often supporting family and others. In later years, travels to Japan and China rewarded her lifelong interest in Far East thought and culture. She was co-founder, with her friends Jana and Alan Watts, of the Society for Comparative Philosophy. The current women’s movement has engendered a wide new readership and enthusiasm for her work and life. A recently expanded anthology of her poetry in sequence, accompanied by pictures, is Sapphic Songs: Eighteen to Eighty. An eagerly awaited autobiography, whose preview chapters have won considerable acclaim, is also well in progress. The isolated, beautiful mountain retreat Elsa has created for herself and Page 249 →friends outside San Francisco is seen by many as a living Zen poem. There, she gardens organically and pursues all the aspects of her quiet revolution.
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