Joan Larkin in T Magazine?

The photo shoot that flew under radar.

Two Houses is a newsletter of stories about art, feminism, grief, and Time excavated from the Soho loft where I grew up. Posts are free and illustrated with the work of my long-divorced parents, the painters Mimi Weisbord and Lennart Anderson.

I presumed it was a fashion shoot of accomplished women invited by designers to celebrate and leverage their creative prowess and importance to the culture. Because there was octogenarian Joan Larkin looking dignified and stunning, showcasing a powerhouse wardrobe. Joan Larkin, whose sixth volume of poetry is forthcoming this August, who has twice won Lambda Literary Awards (among various honors), and who my substack featured for her poem “Housework” just a few weeks ago, graced a full page of T Magazine in the Sunday edition of The New York Times (February 18th).

Reader, you must see these photos! They are taken by Jessica Madavo and styled by Sasha Kelly.¹ I asked the NYT for permission to post them, but there is a 90-day embargo on their reproduction (as well as financial obstacles). Click on this picture of Joan in my mother’s loft; the link opens in a new tab and takes you where you need to go.

Joan Larkin in Soho in 2022. Mounted behind her is my mother Mimi Weisbord’s five-panel Hydra Hillside. C. 2007. Oil on linen.

I don’t get the print edition of the The New York Times. And I admit that I don’t open the NYT app like I used to because of the news and a need to survive my days. I learned of Joan’s modeling debut only when a writer friend emailed me her photo from T Magazine that included a thumb clutching the page. Joan was circulating among a set of literati who had blinked and blinked again to find her there.

Wait. I nearly choked. That’s Joan! Is this for real?

Remember the joyous amazement when Louise Glück won the Nobel Prize in Literature? Ok, that analogy is quite a stretch … but is it?

Because, in a better world, in a world that would have me opening my NYT app each morning with my tea getting ready for my day, I’d scroll eagerly to see full-page fashion spreads celebrating poets. And for a precious, glorious minute, I believed Joan was having her “Annie Leibovitz” moment, that the NYT had decided to shine a bright light on her contributions, perhaps even as a groundbreaking lesbian feminist writer. (Or at least acknowledge they knew they were doing so.)

But the caption read: “Givenchy jacket and dress, price on request, givenchy[dot]com; and Alexander McQueen earrings, $1,090.”

Huh?

Once upon a time (1975, to get specific), Joan Larkin co-edited Amazon Poetry, the pioneering volume of lesbian poetry published by Out and Out Books (the press she founded). She and Elly Bulkin invited lesbians from all over the country to submit their work and be published alongside known poet greats, such as Adrienne Rich and May Sarton.

That was just the start of her career.

So you’ll forgive me if I misunderstood the T Magazine photo shoot of Joan in the power suit.

And yet, in a way, the omission doesn’t matter. It’s proof that something larger is at play. The universe is tugging in so many directions; we all feel it. The New York Times is but a pawn. Because, for me, for a lesbian feminist in her middle fifties, this is almost as satisfying as E. Jean Carroll looking fabulous exiting court flanked by her rather competent legal team.

Ok, that’s another crazy analogy … but is it? Joan’s first foray into modeling isn’t exactly a Lands End gig.

She says she was contacted out of the blue by a casting director. At first, she thought it was a scam. “It was all a bit mysterious,” she wrote me, “and a good experience.”

She doesn’t know exactly how she ended up in T Magazine.

Again, something larger is at play.

I see it as proof that we, too, have champions in the stars, bending their powers and influence in the time-meets-matter continuum. These forces sent their ripples, and they are extending still, such as here on this substack, where I envision Joan’s “‘Vagina’ Sonnet” included with those T Magazine images: the work of an American Academy of Poets “fellow” who once challenged the patriarchy’s hold on the literary canon.

And—like E. Jean—won.

Here is “‘Vagina’ Sonnet.” It was first published in Housework (Out and Out Books, 1975), reprinted in My Body: New and Selected Poems (Hanging Loose Press, 2007), and was just anthologized in The American Sonnet: An Anthology of Poems and Essays (University of Iowa Press, 2023).

Please pair it in your mind with this second image of Joan in T Magazine (again, photographed by Jessica Madavo and styled by Sasha Kelly).

“Vagina” Sonnet

(Copyright © 1975 and 2007 by Joan Larkin. Reproduced with permission.)

Is "vagina" suitable for use
in a sonnet? I don't suppose so.
A famous poet told me, "Vagina's ugly."
Meaning, of course, the sound of it.   In poems.
Meanwhile, he inserts his penis frequently
into his verse, calling it, seriously, "My
Penis."  It is short, I know, and dignified.
I mean of course the sound of it.   In poems.
This whole thing is unfortunate, but petty,
like my hangup concerning English Dept. memos
headed "Mr./Mrs./Miss"--only a fishbone
in the throat of the revolution--
a waste of brains--to be concerned about
this minor issue of my cunt's good name.

Listen to Joan read “‘Vagina’ Sonnet” and learn more about Amazon Poetry and the origin of Out and Out Books at this archived WNYC Reader’s Almanac recording from 1976.

And for further perspective, here is more treasure from my mother’s loft. An album cover featuring Joan Larkin, Audre Lorde, Honor Moore, and Adrienne Rich reading their work in Park Slope.

Happy Women’s History Month, everyone.

1. From “Fashion That Sticks to Bare Necessities,” The New York Times, February 17, 2024. A version of this article appears in print on Feb. 18, 2024, Page 82 of T Magazine with the headline: “The Bare Necessities.”