Pat Parker was an African American poet and activist whose work drew on her experiences as a Black lesbian feminist.
Born Patricia Crooks in 1944, she grew up in Houston, Texas. At 17, she moved to Los Angeles to attend college and later relocated to San Francisco to study writing, though she did not graduate.
In 1962, she married playwright Ed Bullins. During their marriage, the couple became involved with the Black Panther Party. They divorced four years later, with Parker later detailing her experience of domestic violence.
Soon after her 1966 divorce, she married publisher Robert F Parker. This relationship also ended, and Parker later said that by the late 1960s she had realised she was a lesbian.
In the early 1960s, Parker began reading her poetry in bookshops. After moving to Oakland, California, in the early 1970s, her writing career gained momentum.
One of her most well-known works is Womanslaughter, a poem written in response to the death of her older sister, Shirley Jones, who was shot and killed by her husband.
From the late 1960s until her death in 1989, Parker corresponded with writer Audre Lorde, whose work explored similar themes.
Parker died at the age of 45 after being diagnosed with breast cancer.
In June 2019, she was named as one of 50 inaugural “pioneers, trailblazers, and heroes” at the Stonewall National Monument in New York.
In 1979, Parker read her poem Where You Will Be at the first National March on Washington for LGBTQ rights.
