Highest Apple: Sappho and the Lesbian Poetic Tradition

A groundbreaking exploration of lesbian poetics from Sappho to contemporary voices, now updated with new perspectives.

In 1985, Judy Grahn boldly declared that lesbians have a poetic tradition and mapped it from Sappho to the present day in The Highest Apple. With her characteristic ferocious intellect, passion for historical research, careful close readings, and dynamic storytelling, Grahn situated poetry by Sappho, Emily Dickinson, Amy Lowell, H.D., Gertrude Stein and others as central to lesbian culture and to society as a whole.

This new edition revisits the original text and amplifies it with a more in depth consideration of Pat Parker and in conversation with two younger lesbian poets. New essays highlight the ongoing significance of The Highest Apple to readers, writers, and thinkers. For readers interested in lesbian literature, feminist theory, and LGBTQ+ history.