Talking about reading Willow Hammer and the news...

My review of Patrick Donnelly's Willow Hammer is up on MicroLit Almanac today. That was a difficult collection to both read and write about. The subject matter is complicated; a person's not knowing about events, and sexual violence, and what, if anything, one can do with the knowledge after the fact. It's an experience shared by far too many people in our world -in our country!- and it breaks my heart to read the poems and to think, hey, there are elected people who have committed these heinous acts. And there are elected people who have experienced these acts, who still excuse abusers. And there are thousands of young women (in particular) who are shamed over and over again for being victims. It's a cycle of hell that should not occur, has always occurred, and women (and yes, men/boys, but women/girls more predominantly) are left trying to patch up their inner Selves. 

That all said, it's a beautifully written collection, so you might want to check it out, or at least hear Patrick read from it. He reads wonderfully.

But back to what truly worries me: how are we, as a so-called caring and enlightened (!) society, still excusing sexual predators, abusers, perpetrators and purveyors of degrading and destructive acts? This whole Epstein thing is just a touchstone for a wider, more prevalent problem. See, the reason a lot of MAGA members want the files released and the names named is not because they give a damn about the young women/girls who were treated like commodities, they just want the point and accuse validation to be theirs. They want to publicly shame and blame-- not out of a sense of outrage for the victims, but because they can "own" people. That's abusive, too. Some do care, I suspect, but the loudest ones are all about the gamesmanship. It's sickening. And it's a bit frightening, too, when all of a sudden we are expected to move on-- nothing to see here-- and we know full well that the manipulations that went on in a political campaign, the manufactured outrage and ire that was intended to sway voters (and it did), all came out of very real pain, humiliation, and abuse of young women. 

That's sexual abuse, too. Trading their degradation for ballots. I'm furious. As we should be.

So, yeah, the book was hard to read and write about, but not because of the text. It is this ongoing history of abuse and the monetizing and politicizing of the rape and humiliation of women that pisses me off. We must do better.

Anyhow, I hope you have a good day, and I promise, the next book I rant about won't be one that creates such angst.

C