Eruptions of Inanna: Justice, Gender, and Erotic Power

by Judy Grahn

Overview

WINNER of the Association for the Study of Women and Mythology’s Sarasvati Nonfiction Book Award! 

Path-breaking lesbian poet & scholar Judy Grahn returns to the stories of Inanna the Mesopotamian goddess of erotic love and justice to reimagine the contemporary world.

In her trademark lusciously erotic writing, Judy Grahn illuminates eight dramatic stories exploring the Mesopotamian goddess Inanna’s power and relevance for contemporary queer feminist audiences. Psychologically rich, morally and ethically exhilarating, passionate and full of life, these stories reimagine central western myths, including the book of Job and Gilgamesh with women and queer people as central actors. In every sentence, Grahn proves how revisiting origin stories is a vital world-making activity.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781643620763
Publisher:	Nightboat Books
Publication date:	05/25/2021
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	966,854
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Judy Grahn is an internationally known poet, author, mythographer, and cultural theorist. Her works include seven books of nonfiction, two book length poems, five poetry collections, a reader, and a novel. An early Gay activist who walked the first picket of the White House for Gay rights in 1965, she later founded Gay Women’s Liberation and the Women’s Press Collective. Her intention with writing is to replace obsolete philosophies with better ones. Her subjects range from LGBT history and mythology to feminist critiques of current crises, new origin theories of inclusion, what makes us human, taking racism personally in dismantling white supremacy, and stories of how to engage with creature-minds and spirit. She also writes about and teaches poetry of Sumerian goddess Inanna, and has written three books tying her to Helen of Troy, and bringing Inanna’s major stories up to date. Judy holds a Ph.D. in Integral Studies/Women’s Spirituality, from the California Institute of Integral Studies. 

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

1 Inanna, Goddess of Justice 5

2 Gilgamesh, the Rebel Who Turned Against Inanna 33

3 O My Wild, Ecstatic Cow! 53

4 The Woman Who Would Be Job 79

5 Inanna's Continuing Eruptions 129

Notes 147

Bibliography 177

Index 187

Acknowledgments 205

Preface

Introduction Six thousand years ago, at least, people settled along and between two Mesopotamian rivers, the Euphrates and the Tigris, in the area called the “Fertile Crescent.” A rich civilization, Sumer, grew there, lasting thousands of years and producing lively agriculture, trade, arts and sciences, including the art of writing. In addition to records and accounts, Sumerians excelled in writing down their mythology, songs, and praise poems. The earliest poet known by name is Enheduanna, a high priestess in the city-state of Ur. She wrote three long poems about her own exile and suffering, while exalting Inanna, the goddess of love, beauty, justice, and so much more. Sumerian poets, nearly all anonymous, praised their pantheon of major gods in written language; none has had more lines of poems survive the ages than the goddess Inanna. My retelling of eight myths about Inanna written by Sumerian poets beginning at least 4260 years ago are at the heart of this book. I am enthralled by the lush qualities of the poetries and intriguing plots of the stories of Inanna, but, as a poet myself, there are other reasons I am drawn to understanding this work; I see, in the ancient Sumerian poetry, pre-biblical roots of justice, gender, and erotic power. Even as a child I was a spiritual person, called on to read my poetry in Bible class, and given a handsome Bible by my parents. As I grew older, I was beyond dismayed by the Bible: first by the exclusion of homosexuals from categories of sacredness, then by the absence of female presence in divinity, then as I became more socially conscious, by the definition of light as “good” and dark as “bad” (in the New Testament especially) which only exacerbate social and psychological divisions. Later, I also became acutely aware of the split between human beings and the rest of nature, a split I learned did not exist in the indigenous religions and practices. What accounted for all this, and what could be done, became major explorations of my life. What can be learned through reading literature that preceded the Bible, and in important ways, fed into its wisdom? And what was left out that we could value now? Every once in a while, if you are lucky, someone bursts into your life and turns it 180 degrees in some marvelous direction. This happened to me in 1984, when Betty De Shong Meador asked to work with me, bearing the gift of the poetry about the Sumerian goddess Inanna. She brought this initially as the present of a recently published, bright red volume of translated work by the poet Diane Wolkstein and the Sumerian scholar Noah Kramer: Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth. I had been writing woman-centered poetry for twenty years, most recently traipsing after a modernized version of Helen of Troy, but the mythologies recorded by the Sumerian poets describing the lively exploits of this goddess of love and war took the pressing subject of women’s contributions to culture to a whole new level. Betty, as a Jungian psychoanalyst, had a keen eye for the psychological value of this work, especially as it recast notions of women’s autonomy, emotional depth, leadership abilities, erotic power, and capacity to find value in periodic depression and renewal. We were both transfixed. Then coming into a class I was teaching, Betty reached much deeper during the next fifteen years as she devoted herself, alongside a Sumerian translator, to rendering into English, comprehensible and beautiful poetry by a woman named Enheduanna, born some 4300 years ago in the Sumerian city of Ur, about the goddess Inanna. Betty published the gorgeous translations, along with her excellent commentary, in her book Inanna, Lady of Largest Heart: Poems of the Sumerian High Priestess Enheduanna. Eruptions of Inanna adds my poet’s interpretations to Inanna’s major stories, each one revealing a different aspect of how her poets viewed her unique approaches to dispensing justice. Inanna’s womanly powers include the arts and crafts of her civilization, fates of her Sumerian people in life and afterlife, welfare of the land and its plants and creatures, and her clever use of menstrual rules. I explore how the Sumerians modulated intense states of energy; and how Inanna used erotic energies, her multigendered joyful processions, and other methods of interconnection, such as taverns, to create a lively civic life. Inanna also had a volatile nature; I compare her stories with the central plot and lessons of the Bible’s Book of Job, exposing some of the more contentious language associating Inanna with war and revealing an expanding scientific understanding of the Sumerians, while also exploring gender-changing capacities attributed to Inanna. The well-known myth of King Gilgamesh and his quest to overthrow Inanna and gain for himself the secret of eternal life recounts an important story about two very close male friends with a rejecting eye toward the sacred feminine; from this story, the roots of three worldviews about life and death, all of which we grapple with today, emerge. These three worldviews are the paradise myth, reincarnation, and secularism. Inanna’s character recurs and erupts in Akkadian, Babylonian, Greek, Roman, north African Gnostic, German, and contemporary American poetic mythology. Tracing eruptions of Inanna through history invites new ways for readers to reimagine our world today. Over a nearly thirty-five year collaboration, Betty Meador and I had hundreds of conversations about the qualities attributed to Inanna, the meaning of her actions, and the sacred, powerful presence of both female and transgendered characters in the original stories. In reimagining these ancient stories, what is most fascinating, and valuable, are the poets’ perspectives on a clash of worldviews, and the ethical teachings implicit in poetry describing Inanna’s relationships with both people and nature, crucially important for the challenges of our world today. The myths featuring Inanna were written down between four and five thousand years ago by poets and scribes. The main characters are gods of Sumer. Enki is Inanna’s grandfather, and god of “sweet waters” especially of the rivers and irrigation. Ninshubur is Inanna’s fiercely loyal assistant and a goddess-queen in her own right. Dumuzi, whose name became Tammuz later, is Inanna’s lover, and he is both shepherd king and bull god. Ereshkigal, goddess of the underworld, and of regeneration, is Inanna’s older sister. Their stories and many others were composed by Sumer’s great poets and inscribed on clay tablets; they survived over thousands of years, baked in fires, buried in dry sand. They date from 3100 BCE to about 2100 BCE, and reflect the beginnings of our own age of cities, agriculture, and industry. A scholar’s eyes collect intricacies of information and range of interpretations; a poet’s eye may see a different set, adding further value to the treasure that is Sumerian literature. Judy Grahn  

Editorial Reviews

"In addition to her work in contemporary feminist movements, Grahn has conducted years of research on Mesopotamian literature and ancient storytelling about feminine power, focusing in particular on the ancient Sumerian goddess Inanna. Her latest book Eruptions of Inanna, published this month by Nightboat Books, is anchored in the interpretation and retelling of eight stories about Inanna, which were authored by Sumerian writers and in which, Grahn writes in the intro, she sees “pre-biblical roots of justice, gender, and erotic power.” I asked her about the stories’ connection to contemporary politics, her extensive work on mythology, and finding queerness in ancient stories."—Literary Hub

"In this conversation, poet, activist, teacher and scholar Judy Grahn discusses her latest book Eruptions of Inanna: Justice, Gender, and Erotic Power, published by Nightboat Books. She and Rachel—who also has lifelong connection to the stories of Inanna through her mother, Diane Wolkstein—examine the importance of these origin stories to modern-day activism and identity politics."—Commonplace Podcast

"Reading Eruptions of Inanna is to be immersed in a worldview and society that celebrates all Inanna’s qualities. Grahn writes with honesty and poignancy about how Inanna and women associated with her and the power of female beauty and eroticism, including Helen of Troy and Marilyn Monroe, transformed her over decades. By the end of the book, I, too, had a visceral sense of being embraced by the spirit of Inanna so completely was she revealed and enlivened by Grahn’s detailed and spirited retelling of the stories, her in-depth analysis, and her description of ancient Sumer. In many ways, Grahn is our generation’s Enheduanna, the world’s first named poet who wrote hymns celebrating Inanna, elucidating the goddess and her meaning for our own times."—Feminism and Religion

"I’m awed by the breadth of research that went into Eruptions of Inanna. The author draws links between the traditions of ancient Sumeria and its successive civilizations, down to those of the modern Abrahamic religions."—Ebisu Publications

"In honor of Pride, we look at an ancient LGBTQ ritual and inclusive culture. In the first hour, guest host Christina Aanestad speaks with internationally known poet and cultural theorist, Judy Grahn, author of the new book, ‘Eruptions of Inanna: Justice Gender and Erotic Power.’ Using the ancient texts written by Enheduanna, a high priestess in prebiblical Sumerian times, Grahn poetically describes an ancient culture that included trans, gays, lesbians, and bisexuals in spiritual leadership and its cosmology.  She also draws connections between Sumerian texts and stories later adapted in the bible."—KPFA

From the Publisher