In the anthology Women
Write Resistance: Poets Resist Gender Violence, readers learn just how many
forms of resistance to female-specific violence there are.
The answer is: so many that I wrote a damn critical thesis
just to tell you how great this anthology is (i.e., settle in for a
long-but-worth-it read). Also, four BL authors have work in this collection,
and it’s incredibly cool to have published talented writers who also happen to
be compassionate and engaged. Congrats on your continued greatness, Grace Bauer
(#23), Mary Stone
Dockery (#21), July Westhale (#19), and Sarah A. Chavez (also #19).
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.
