Elsa: I Come With My Songs

There is something empowering about reading the memoirs of a woman who — in the early 20th century — lived an openly lesbian life without apology or shame. A woman who, nowadays, is almost forgotten in queer discourse, yet lived a life that should be a roadmap for lesbians who also want to be unapologetically themselves.

“Elsa: I Come With My Songs” was published in 1986, but the experiences author Elsa Gidlow shares could be taken from the lives of modern-day lesbians just as well. Gidlow’s book might not be a new release, but it is a comfort for lesbian women who finally see themselves represented in literature, and I pray that by sharing this book with you — the reader — her story will never be forgotten.

Elsa Gidlow wasn’t just a poet; she was a force, a trailblazer, and, in many ways, one of the earliest lesbian writers in North America. Long before queer liberation became a movement, she was out there in the world, writing about love between women, existing loudly in a world that wanted her and her kind to be quiet.

Reading “Elsa: I Come With My Songs” feels like more than learning her story. It is a preservation of queer history that, in the 20th century, often had no place to be preserved. Gidlow wrote, in detail, about the lives of herself and her queer circle, and by doing so, she created an archive of a mostly unwritten North American lesbian history.

Born in England and raised in Canada, she later moved to the United States, where she found herself at the centre of aspiring radical artistic and intellectual circles. In 1923, she published On a Grey Thread, widely considered the first openly lesbian book of poetry in North America (read that too if you have the chance). At a time when queerness was hidden in subtext and euphemism, she was putting it on the pages in plain sight. That alone should be enough for Gidlow’s legacy to never be forgotten. But her impact went far beyond literature; she built queer spaces, nurtured community, and created a life that, even now, feels aspirational.

What makes Gidlow’s autobiography so powerful is how unapologetically honest it is. She writes about love and desire without shame, something that still feels radical even today. She shares stories of the women she loved — the reader gets to know Isabel Grenfell Quallo, Marie Lenoir, Kiki Wood and others as full, three-dimensional people whom Gidlow shared her heart with. Their relationships are not — like often in mainstream media — reduced to sex and drama, but instead highlight the real joys and challenges of lesbian living.

Her language is poetic but never distant — it’s the kind of writing that makes you feel like you’re sitting across from her, listening to stories over a cup of coffee. It’s personal, intimate and filled with the kind of reflections that make you stop and reread sentences just to let them sink in. Most importantly, it makes you feel a little less alone.

Reading her memoir now, almost 40 years after it was first published, it’s hard not to feel grateful for the path she carved with her actions and her words. So much of what she wrote about — the search for belonging, the fight to live authentically, the importance of chosen family — still matters to queer life today.

Gidlow’s work reminds us that being a lesbian, a writer or a poet, isn’t just about being visible; it’s about creating something lasting, something that tells the next generation: You were never alone.

Lea Krusemeyer (she/her) is a lesbian writer and journalist living in Vancouver who dedicates her writing to highlighting queer life; especially queer life of the past, which is too often overlooked or forgotten.