Diesel Fuel: Passionate Poetry (Richard Kasak Books) [Mass Market Paperback]

Pat Califia (Author)

Book Description

Series: Richard Kasak Books | Publication Date: May 1997

An extraordinary volume from this renowned sexual pioneer. In this first collection of verse, the author of such best-sellingand infamousvolumes as Sensuous Magic and Macho Sluts, reveals herself to be a poet of unusual power and frankness. Not for the timid, Diesel Fuel is nonetheless one of this year's must-read explorations of underground culture.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Pat Califia is well known as a sexual pioneer whose essays and fictions have encouraged lesbians to explore and discuss a wider range of erotic experience. In this book, her first volume of poetry, Califia gives voice--in the form of brief lyrics and more developed dramatic monologues--to the rebels and outlaws she has written about as a theorist. The women in these poems are tough, funny, often working class dykes who howl in anger, rage, and ecstasy about the power of sex, the sex of power, and not a few controversies between.

Review

Diesel Fuel (so named in remembrance of the diesel dykes of the 1950s) is a collection of poems that embrace the passion, romance, and politics that make up Pat Califia's life. As Califia states in the introduction, "These poems are very personal. . . I hope the reader will not think too harshly of me for wanting to talk about all of my experience, not just the parts that validate the valorized portions of my image. If I have a vocation, it is to combat sexual shame by speaking as much truth as I know about what really happens in the realm of Eros, and Diesel Fuel is one more record of that calling. " Diesel Fuel is a compendium of candid, insightful, exceptionally well crafted poems with phrases and images and commentary that will linger in the mind long after the book is put back on the shelf. We come out of the swaddling darkness/Not knowing that we have been blind,/And then it seems to us/That life is a harsh and evil thing,/Full of loneliness, hurt, and pain. /Lost in the light,/When we look for home/We look in the darkness,/Swimming in each other's arms/As we once floated/Beneath the heartbeat/That echoed our own. /To those who imagined that darkness/Is the enemy,/I have this to say:/Be careful of what you plant/In such rich soil. /Fear is a potent seed. /I also say:/Day is the sister, the . over of Night/And would die of loneliness/Without her. -- Midwest Book Review

Diesel Fuel is a compendium of candid, insightful, exceptionally well crafted poems with phrases and images and commentary that will linger in the mind long after the book is put back on the shelf. -- The Midwest Book Review

Diesel Fuel: Passionate Poetry is at once an extraordinary hard-core collectiona veritable poetic chronicle of Califia's own sexual historyand a glorification of pure dyke visibility. -- HX for Her

It's a generous collection that's prurient and powerful, autobiographical and angry, impassioned and in bad taste, eclectic and electrifyingpoetry with a swagger made seductive the cool shameless sexual intellect of its author. -- A Different Light Staff Selection

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Masquerade Books; 1st Richard Kasak book ed edition (May 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1563335352
• ISBN-13: 978-1563335358
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,626,032 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Diesel Fuel is true dyke poetry., August 9, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Diesel Fuel: Passionate Poetry (Richard Kasak Books) (Mass Market Paperback)

Pat states in "Diesel Fuel," "If I have a vocation, it is to combat sexual shame by speaking as much truth as I know about what really happens in the realm of Eros, and Diesel Fuel is one more record of that calling."

I am a dyke. As part of my coming out process, I sought out lesbian/dyke history. I wanted a record of others who were like me. I wanted to learn about them. I'm grateful for Pat's work, including "Diesel Dykes."

As you read each poem, you can feel the soul of the woman she introduces you to. These poems are true dyke poetry.

I'm proud to say I have been out for a number of years. I'm happy to report I had the opportunity to meet Pat Califia at a gathering in San Francisco.

Enjoy "Diesel Fuel" and any other of her excellent, thought-provoking work.

I devoured this book, cover to cover. I trust you will too.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars very slinky and kind of scary at the same time, August 27, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Diesel Fuel: Passionate Poetry (Richard Kasak Books) (Mass Market Paperback)

This book slinks! I'm a 16 year old baby dyke from Madison, Wisconsin. It's got a lot of S/M stuff, which kind of put me off at first, cos I'm quite vanilla. Still, it's a great book and I read one poem over and over again. That would "Only You Can Kiss Like This." I shared it with my lover and she really liked it too. I love Califia's imagery. At first I"d only heard of her as a sex columnist in a lesbian magazine and I was happily surprised to hear she writes poetry as well.

5.0 out of 5 stars For die-hard P.C. fans!!, May 11, 2010

By 

Nicole B. "Nicole" (Baltimore, MD) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Diesel Fuel: Passionate Poetry (Richard Kasak Books) (Mass Market Paperback)

I was lucky to be able to get this book. They're hard to come by. If you're a P.C. fan, you know to expect the racy, risque and kinky. What an incredible author. I love this book. I have some of my faves dog-eared, and read them frequently. It's good stuff, but expect to feel a little frisky after reading!!! ;)