The Dinner Party A Poetic Response

'It was the prevailing attitude in the 1960s that women had no history. There were no women's studies, nothing.' - Judy Chicago, creator of the iconic art installation The Dinner Party, 2017

'The Dinner Party by the talented poet Colleen Keating brings to light, through beautiful lyrical poetry, what for centuries has been ignored: the power and strength of women. Very little has been made known about the lives of influential women of the past, as women's lived experience has been suppressed, even erased from history. In this collection, the poet resuscitates the experience of women from prehistory to women's twentieth-century revolution. Her poetry traces the lives of women who demonstrated their influence, in every field including philosophy, medicine, writing, art, astronomy, suffragists and justice warriors who fought for recognition. Women who gave their lives, suffered, broke barriers, knocked down walls, smashed glass ceilings, pried open doors, who defied patriarchy in some way for all of us. Still today as women are written into history, the struggle for our reckoning towards equality and respect continues. A must-read book that honours women; women who would not be silent.' - Dr Beatriz Copello

'With impeccable research and deep empathy, Colleen Keating continues her powerful poetic contribution to feminist literature with the celebration of thirty-nine of the more than a thousand women forgotten, marginalised or written out of Western history. A remarkable and beautifully imagined work.' - Pip Griffin