Tucked within a small yellow folder, sized about six by nine inches with a brown line drawing of a tree on the cover, are 12 loose sheets of paper. Printed on high-quality paper and typed on what would now be considered archaic, a typewriter, are poems; the poems of women who decided to plant their own place in the literary scene in Buffalo and throughout the entire world in the 1970s. This is the first issue of Earth’s Daughters—the longest running feminist publication in the United States—and it all started right here in Buffalo, NY.

The 1960s was a time of radical change and action, and the University at Buffalo was not exempt from this phenomenon. There were sit-ins, pickets, and rioting in the streets over war and civil rights. Though equality and justice were the themes of many debates and discussions, women were still denied the opportunity to take the lead.

“We could be the lovers of the leaders, but we were not the leaders,” said Judith Kerman, founder of Earth’s Daughters (ED), who was a graduate student at UB at the time.

In addition to the hustle and bustle that surrounded the academic and civil rights movement in Buffalo in the 1960s and 1970s, the poetry scene was also very active. Kerman said the scene gave off a “sense that poetry mattered.” But similarly to the civil rights movement, there was little room for women to express themselves as freely and honestly as their male colleagues and peers.

“It was difficult for women to publish, especially poetry that wasn’t trying to imitate men’s voices,” said ryki zuckerman, long-time member and editor of ED. “If women were writing and they wanted to write about their life; children, men, or domestic issues, forget about it.”

“These kinds of things were considered not important,” said Kastle Brill, also current member and editor of ED.

Instead of conforming to the man’s world of poetry, Judith Kerman decided to create a new venue for this type of poetry in 1971.

“It dawned on me that if we were to assume that the writing community was a place that was inclusive to women, it was very clear that women didn’t think so,” said Kerman.

Kerman placed advertisements in publications like Poets & Writers, an organization and publication which offers information to creative writers. Eventually hopefuls began to submit work to be published in the magazine, to be named Earth’s Daughters, after radical feminist and anarchist Emma Goldman’s Mother Earth.

“We had manuscripts from interesting people right away,” said Kerman.

Once the manuscripts came in, they would usually end up at a meeting with all the editors in someone’s living room. Here, they would rate the poems and decide what would go in the publication collectively.

In addition to the painstaking editing process, Kerman was very focused on the aesthetic look of the publication.

“We knew it had to have visual interest or else it will just vanish,” said Kerman, a thought that the continuing editors still keep in mind.

“Librarians and bookstores hate it, but this was, is, an important feature of the magazine,” said zuckerman.

James Maynard, a professor in UB’s Poetics program and adjunct faculty in English, commented, “I’m just fascinated with the magazine as a magazine and how it reinvented itself formally from issue to issue. What could they do formally that hadn’t been done before?”

Some of the more interesting issues include issue nine, “The Box,” which included a paper doll that coverts into a box with poetry on the side (and a bonus paper bra), and issue 16, “Earth’s Daughters Lost Mss,” which was several strips of poetry, rolled into a tube.

After years of producing unique forums for poetry and women’s voices, Judith Kerman decided to leave Buffalo to explore other opportunities and to begin her own company, Mayapple Press in 1978. She felt strongly that the magazine needed to continue, and that it needed to continue in Buffalo.

“She gathered those who had been involved and asked them if they’d be willing to take it over,” said Brill. “She’d be willing to teach them to do it.”

In the era of commune living and food co-ops, this change triggered Earth’s Daughters transformation from what was formerly known as an editorial board officially into a collective, which could be seen starting in issue seven.

“The collective nature of Earth’s Daughters is what helps it survive,” said Brill.

And survive it has. After 36 years of publishing, Earth’s Daughters is still running strong. The collective includes three veteran editors, Kastle Brill, Joyce Kessel and ryki zuckerman, and three newly added editors, Ansie Baird, Jennifer Campbell and Janna Willoughby (described as an “Earth’s Daughter daughter” by zuckerman, as Willoughby is the daughter of the late Robin Willoughby, long time editor and contributor to the collective). Kerman has attributed much of the success of Earth’s Daughters to its “ability to refresh itself with new people.”

In addition to publishing, ED is also sponsoring a poetry reading series, the Gray Hair Series, curated by ryki zuckerman, co-sponsored by Hallwalls and Just Buffalo Literary Center. With this series, ED continues to make a place for marginalized members of the poetry circle of Buffalo. In addition to referring to the hair color of many of the readers, the name, coined by zuckerman, is a pun, a play on name of the Gray Chair of Poetry of the UB poetics program, famous for its “avant-garde isolationism” (as Mike Kelleher of Just Buffalo put it.).

Kerman commented, “You shouldn’t have to have a PhD to enjoy poetry... The people who made American literature made it in opposition to that. I think Earth’s Daughters has successfully kept its feet on the ground in the same way.”

The Gray Hair Series recently held a reading at Hallwalls, featuring Mick Cochrane and Earth’s Daughter’s very own Judith Kerman. The next event in the series will also be at Hallwalls on Wednesday November 14 at 7:30 p.m. and features Max Wickert and Paul T. Hogan.

The collective will soon be accepting submissions for their next issue, featuring a politically slanted theme, titled “On the Soapbox.” Though its glossy cover and change of form throughout the years might seem leagues away from the broadsides and illustrations of their first issue, the content and message between the pages will continue to challenge literary norms and surprise it’s readers both from Buffalo and worldwide.

Michelle Matthews is a junior English major and a Features writer for Generation.