something something growing up missing childhood & ur old friends idk
dodie, When / Lorde, Stoned At The Nail Salon / @\gaycommunist / Amaral / @\slugspoon / Lorde, Ribs / Amaia, Yamaguchi / One Direction, Story Of My Life / Taylor Swift, Nothing New
My first pick as a staff member at UWM’s Special Collections is
The Women Who Hate Me by Dorothy Allison (b. 1949), published by Long Haul
Press in Brooklyn, 1983. This small, intimate book of poetry also features illustrations
by Laurie McLaughlin.
Born in Greenville, South Carolina to a fifteen-year-old
unwed mother, Allison grew up in a very poor, working-class family in the 1950s. Her
burgeoning lesbian identity and strained/abusive relationship with her
stepfather left her feeling ostracized and out of place. After attending Florida
Presbyterian college and the New School of Social Research for anthropology, she
found solace in a community of other feminists and eventually made a career for
herself developing stories and poems often based on her experiences. She would
receive mainstream recognition at the publishing at her 1992 novel, Bastard Out
of Carolina.
What cannot be overlooked in Allison’s writing is her honesty
and ability to lay everything bare; to articulate what is seen but never said,
as gut-wrenching and brutal as it may be. With themes of sexual abuse, child
abuse, class struggle, women, feminism, lesbianism, and family throughout, she
dedicates this collection of poetry to “the women who hate me who made me angry
enough to write these poems,” and “for the women who love me who read the poems
and helped me pull all the pieces together.”
