Mysterious collection of poems by Kathy Fire, visionary eccentric and onetime roommate of noted book artist Richard Minsky (who published this volume, one of his earliest). No reviews or contemporary accounts of Fire’s work could be found, though Fire contributed a song, “Libido,” to MINSKY IN LONDON (1980), but appears in no other known publications. Pamela Moore’s introduction provides sparse and enigmatic biographical information, with references to”…a serious personal struggle which threatened her existence. For a time she was terrorized to the point of near immobility, and a mystique surrounded her life…” Just about the only contemporary reference to Kathy Fire’s published work is a photograph (provided in computer print out) of David Bowie published at the time in a music magazine, reading IMMORTAL DREAMERS on a train.
We are unable to definitively identify the author with another (?) contemporary Kathy Fire: a folksinger (SONGS OF FIRE: Songs of a Lesbian Anarchist: Smithsonian Folkways Records, 1978), and founding member of Philadelphia’s DYKETACTICS!. The latter Fire, only slightly less obscure, is known to have left the East Coast for San Diego in 1979 (as recorded in several histories of queer/feminist activism), and no further information about her activities is available. Her heavily political lyrics have no immediately obvious points of similarity with the visionary poems in IMMORTAL DREAMERS. Nevertheless, scarce. OCLC locates just five copies.
