Hello,

My name is Vivian DeRosa, and I’m currently a student at Smith College. While designing my archive capstone project, I thought of one of my favorite Mary Oliver lines. She wrote —

The world, moist and bountiful, calls to each of us to make a new and serious response. That’s the big question, the one the world throws at you every morning. “Here you are, alive. Would you like to make a comment?”[1]

“Our World(s)” is my new and serious response to the radically visible queer lives of Lorraine, Mary, and Molly. When I read Mary Oliver’s poems, or look at Molly’s photographs of Lorraine, so clearly shot with tenderness, I feel acutely aware that I am alive and loving — by putting these lives into conversation with each other, I hope that you can enter their worlds, our worlds, and get that same feeling — “Here you are, alive.”

 

Love,

Vivian

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Acknowledgments

Many thanks to my professor, Kelly Anderson, and the archivists and special collection workers at Smith College Special Collections and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture for their invaluable help.

I would like to thank Trish Maloney for everything she taught me about history and love. I would also like to thank my mother, Katherine Parkin — I am so proud to be your daughter.

[1] Oliver, Mary. Long Life: Essays and Other Writings. Da Capo Press, 2005.