Over at Blood Lotus: An Online Literary Journal, Stacia Fleegal has written a thorough and thoughtful review of the anthology Women Write Resistance: Poets Resist Gender Violence. Two sections of my long piece “Wanting a Gun” appear in the anthology, and are mentioned in the review. Read the entire review here: “How women poets can change the world”
Here’s her excellent, challenging introduction. Go read the rest!
I realized writing this piece is in itself a form of resistance. To speak at length and in unabashed praise of a collection of poetry written in mouthy backlash to the cultural norms of domestic violence, rape, childhood abuse, verbal harassment and assault on city streets, etc., is to stand with women as they refuse to stand for it anymore. It is to give thoughtful treatment to a problem that is largely being ignored by our lawmakers and our justice system, which is an attempt to extend the work these poets and this editor undertook in participating in the anthology. It is to defy anyone to suggest that these poems aren’t literary because they often sound colloquial, or to dismiss them as therapeutic or confessional or any of those other supposed “critical” terms that condescend to the kind of writing I and others call real talk. We can do that in poetry. Not only is it allowed, but resistance is poetry’s legacy.
This Frenzy 