The Women Who Hate Me: Poetry 1980-1990 - Softcover

Allison, Dorothy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0932379982 ISBN 13: 9780932379986

Publisher: Firebrand Books, 1991

Synopsis

Book by Allison, Dorothy

About this title

About the Author:

Dorothy Allison describes herself as a feminist, a working-class story teller, a Southern expatriate, a sometime poet and a happily born-again Californian. Awarded the 2007 Robert Penn Warren Award for Fiction, Allison is a member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. Allison's short story collection, Trash (1988) was published by Firebrand Books. Trash won two Lambda Literary Awards and the American Library Association Prize for Lesbian and Gay Writing. Allison's novel Bastard Out of Carolina, (1992) was a finalist for the 1992 National Book Award. The novel won the Ferro Grumley prize, an ALA Award for Lesbian and Gay Writing, became a best seller, and an award-winning movie. Cavedweller (1998) became a national bestseller, New York Times Notable book of the year, finalist for the Lillian Smith prize, and an ALA prizewinner.

From Publishers Weekly:

Allison ( Trash ) writes poems that brim with emotion, sometimes focused and tender, but more often confused and enraged. The subject in this expanded edition of her collection of poems is Allison's lesbianism. Although she mentions the freedoms denied her and her "sisters," the poet ultimately seems to care little for furthering peoples' acceptance of lesbianism. Indeed, she goes so far as to proclaim: "I do not believe anymore in the natural superiority / of the lesbian." The poet realizes, bitterly, that she has been unable to escape her past. Abused as a child, she seeks dominant lovers who like to play rough: "I have never been able to resist" a woman who "talks mean" and "makes shell-puckered hickey-bite marks." As a child, the poet's family was "despised," her mother called " no-count, low down, disgusting " ital in text for her affairs with various "uncles." Allison acknowledges that she is her "mama's daughter," with "at least as much lust / in her life as pain." The poet's imagery is explicit and jarring but her wordplay unpolished. Except for a couple of sentimental love poems, what takes precedence here is a sense of vengeance against all who "hate" her.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Firebrand Books
• Publication date: 1991
• ISBN 10: 0932379982
• ISBN 13: 9780932379986
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 69