kari edwards Biography

Active as an artist and a gender activist, kari edwards is the author of post/(pink) (2000), a diary of lies (2002), a day in the life of p (2002), iduna (2003), obedience (2005), and the posthumous Bharat jiva (2009). She received a New Langton Arts Bay Area Award in literature in 2002 and the Small Press Traffic’s book of the year award in 2004.

edwards resists the idea of gender roles and conventional genre divisions; a day in the life of p has been described as both a novel and a form of poem. In a 2003 Rain Taxi interview with akilah oliver, edwards remarked: “for me language becomes a tool that can be used and then destroyed or reused again in a different way.” Describing her dyslexia, edwards added: “I may be fortunate or not to be dyslexic, so I have the ability to look at an object and lose its name; for a moment I’m in the presence of that object. I guess the same goes for gendered individuals […] it could be that they are a male or female but I never try to fix them to position.” Her own works often give the impression of not being fixed in position, while they capture the development and progression of thought.

edwards has contributed work to Blood and Tears: Poems for Matthew Shepard (2000), Transgenderism: InterSEXions of the Others (2004), Civil Disobedience: Poetics and Politics in Action (2004), and the International Journal of Sexuality and Gender Studies. She is the subject of No Gender: Reflections on the Life & Work of kari edwards (2009).