Feminism as Ancestry: Poetry Broadside RESPONSES to the Friedman Feminist Collection

by Bianca Glinksas | Libraries writer in residency

The CSU Libraries are proud to announce the opening of Feminism as Ancestry: Poetry Broadside to the Friedman Feminist Collection, an exhibition by Libraries writer-in-residence Bianca Glinskas, Clarissa Trapp, instructor and outreach archivist, and exhibition coordinator Silvia Minguzzi. Opening May 8, 2025, and running through Spring 2026 in the Archives & Special Collections area of the Morgan Library, the exhibition features a striking bouquet of original poems in conversation with voices from the Friedman Feminist Press Collection.

Glinskas’s poems navigate a rich constellation of ideas rooted in feminist theory, personal grief, and contemporary political urgency. Through intentional dialogue with literary foremothers like Adrienne Rich, Sylvia Plath, and Marilyn Hacker—alongside epigraphs from No More Fun and Games: A Journal of Female Liberation—the poet confronts the meanings of patriarchy, male power, fatherhood, and godhood. Poems such as Fallen Fathers, Fascism Is Not a Fairytale, and Fractured Elegy emerge as acts of reclamation—at once elegiac, resistant, and searching.
Glinskas’s work embodies a living literary lineage. It speaks directly to the bodies, voices, and feminist legacies housed in the Friedman Feminist Collection, while simultaneously forging new paths of reflection and resistance.

The Friedman Feminist Press Collection is a cornerstone of the CSU Libraries’ Archives & Special Collections. It preserves an extraordinary array of feminist and lesbian literature published by presses such as the Women’s Press Collective, Shameless Hussy Press, Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, Spinsters Ink, and many others. These rare and powerful texts—spanning fiction, memoir, poetry, and essays—represent the intellectual and cultural force of second-wave feminism from the 1960s to the 1980s.
Donated by CSU alumna Dr. Kayann Short and CSU’s Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer Questioning, and Ally Resource Center (on behalf of director K. Foula Dimopoulos), the collection serves as an enduring resource for students, scholars, and the community.

Feminism as Ancestry invites viewers to encounter these feminist texts anew, through poetry that refuses oppressive definitions and forages for new, liberated ones. It is a testament to the resilience of women’s voices and the archival power of poetic reckoning.

For more information, visit lib.colostate.edu or contact Silvia Minguzzi at [email protected].