Margaret Randall - The Outwords Archive

Margaret (age ~4), sitting outside on a sled in the snow, 1940. Photo courtesy of Margaret Randall.

A portrait of Margaret (age 4) smiling, September 18, 1941. Photo courtesy of Margaret Randall.

A portrait of Margaret biting a pencil while sitting in front of a typewriter, circa 1950s. Photo courtesy of Margaret Randall.

Meeting participants gathering at Casa de las Américas in Havana, Cuba, 1970. The participants included Margaret Randall (here with her hair tied back), Rodolfo Walsh, Silvia Gil, Alfredo Guevara, Manuel Galich, Haydee Santamaria, and Raul Roa. Margaret wrote a chapter on the organization for the book Haydée Santamaría, Cuban Revolutionary: She Lead By Transgression. Photo courtesy of Margaret Randall.

A portrait of Margaret posing with her first camera in Cuba, 1978. Photo courtesy of Margaret Randall.

A portrait of Margaret smiling in a dark turtleneck with a broach, late 1980s. Photo Credit: Colleen McKay. Photo courtesy of Margaret Randall.

A pensive portrait of Margaret leaning on her interlaced fingers. Photo Credit: Bud Schultz. Photo courtesy of Margaret Randall.

A portrait of Margaret sitting down and leaning on the rocks while hiking to Battle Cave in the Drakensberg Mountains, Lesotho, South Africa. Photo Credit: Mark Behr. Photo courtesy of Margaret Randall.

A portrait of Margaret leaning on her partner Barbara Byers, 1995. Photo Credit: Mark Behr. Photo courtesy of Margaret Randall.

A portrait of Margaret holding her book Stones Witness, 1990s. Photo Credit: Christina Frain. Photo courtesy of Margaret Randall.

L-R: Smiling grandchildren Martín, Lia, and Daniel Randall with Margaret Randall and her son Gregory Randall, 1990s. Photo courtesy of Margaret Randall.

Margaret Randall smiling as her son Gregory Randall holds her head, 2000s. Photo courtesy of Margaret Randall.

A portrait of Margaret Randall’s daughter Ana Bickford. Photo courtesy of Margaret Randall.

Margaret walking between the walls of a rock formation at the Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument in Sandoval County, NM, 2005. Photo courtesy of Margaret Randall.

L-R: Barbara Byers (Margaret’s partner) and Margaret hugging and smiling at the Canyon de Chelly National Monument in Apache County, AZ, 2005. Photo courtesy of Margaret Randall.

Margaret holding a bamboo pole at La Esquina de Latinoamérica, 2005. Photo Credit: Maria Vasquez. Photo courtesy of Margaret Randall.

Margaret on Easter Island, Chile, 2007. The rock formation she stands next to has been carved into a face. Photo courtesy of Margaret Randall.

L-R: Sarah Mondragón (daughter), Margaret Randall, and Ximena Mondragón (daughter) smiling at the award ceremony for Margaret’s Medal for Literary Merit in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico, 2017. The awarding organization was Literatura en el Bravo, and the banner behind them features a portrait of Margaret. Photo courtesy of Margaret Randall.

Margaret reading at Naropa University in Boulder, CO, 2011. Photo courtesy of Margaret Randall.

L-R: Barbara Byers (Margaret’s partner) and Margaret Randall smiling in front of the Stonewall Inn, New York City, NY, 2011. Photo courtesy of Margaret Randall.

Margaret Randall and Barbara Byers exchanging rings in front of an officiant at their wedding in Brooklyn, NY, 2013. Photo courtesy of Margaret Randall.

A portrait of Margaret with open hands and her fingers interlaced together, 2020. Photo Credit: Kori Suzuki. Photo courtesy of Margaret Randall.

Margaret receiving her honorary doctorate from the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, 2019. Photo courtesy of Margaret Randall.

Xavier Oquendo awarding the Poet of Two Hemispheres prize to Margaret Randall in Quito, Ecuador, 2019. The awarding organization was Poesía en Paralelo Cero. Photo courtesy of Margaret Randall.

Margaret Randall (in a green t-shirt) and her wife Barbara Byers with Gregory Randall (son) and Laura Randall (daughter-in-law); Lia, Martín, and Danny Randall (grandchildren) and their significant others; and Guille and Emma Randall (great-grandchildren) in Uruguay, 2019. Photo courtesy of Margaret Randall.

L-R: Felipe Ehrenberg, Margaret Randall, and Sergio Mondragón (Margaret’s former husband) as panelists at an Universidad Nacional Autonoma & Mexico event honoring El Corno Emplumado, Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, Mexico, 2015. Photo courtesy of Margaret Randall.

L-R: Sarah Mondragón (daughter), Margaret Randall, and Ximena Mondragón (daughter) smiling. Photo courtesy of Margaret Randall.

A portrait of Margaret leaning against a brick wall. Photo Credit: Pascual Borzelli. Photo courtesy of Margaret Randall.

Margaret standing before her illustration on the wall, which was created by Juliana Kirwin’s women’s arts collective, in Albuquerque, NM, 2022. Photo courtesy of Margaret Randall.

Margaret Randall was born on December 6th, 1936, in New York City. Growing up, she had occasional crushes on women but gave little thought to her sexuality. At the age of ten, Margaret and her family moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico. Despite the provincial surroundings, Margaret and her two siblings travelled on holidays to Alaska, South America, and Europe. The exposure to other cultures opened Margaret’s eyes to the lives of other people across the globe.

Whilst studying at the University of New Mexico, Margaret became friends with celebrated painter Elaine de Kooning, who had an important influence on her life. In the late 1950s, she moved back to New York City after a failed first marriage, where she started writing and performing poetry.

In 1960, she moved to Mexico where she formed the influential literary magazine El Corno Emplumado (‘The Plumed Horn’) with other influential US and Latin American poets. Here, she met Sergio Mondragón, whom she married and had two daughters with before separating. In 1967, Margaret attained Mexican citizenship. The following year, the magazine aligned itself with the Mexican student movement and spoke out against the Tlatelolco massacre of unarmed protesters. The subsequent Mexican government crackdown on activists forced Margaret underground. She sent her four young children alone to Cuba while she escaped Mexico. When she reached Cuba, she worked as a freelance journalist, writer, photographer, and oral historian, focusing on how a Socialist revolution may impact women. She also documented the lives and struggles of Cuban, Chilean, Peruvian, Vietnamese, and Nicaraguan women.

After 11 years in Cuba, she lived in Managua, Nicaragua for four years. Here, she wrote about Nicaraguan women and worked with the Sandinista government. After moving back to the US, she was ordered deported under the McCarran-Walter Act of 1952, with her writing deemed to be “against the good order and happiness of the United States”. After a three-year battle, her U.S. citizenship was realized again. Shortly thereafter, Margaret came out as a lesbian, to which her family were very loving and supportive. Two weeks later, she had her first relationship with a woman.

Throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s, Margaret taught at several universities, including Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. After retirement, she focused on writing full-time.

A prolific writer, Margaret has released over 150 books including Che On My Mind, a feminist poet’s reminiscence of Che Guevara, and Sandino’s Daughters, which detailed Nicaraguan women’s struggle against the dictator Somoza. She is also an avid photographer and has exhibited her photographs all over the US.

Today, Margaret Randall’s legacy thrives through her poetry, activism, and dedication to justice. With four children, ten grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren, she continues to inspire future generations. Margaret lives with Barbara Byers, a visual artist and her wife of ten years, in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Bio Author: Richard Gilbert-Cross

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