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A review by devrose
WWJD and Other Poems by Savannah Sipple
4.0
I had high expectations for WWJD and Other Poems as soon as I saw that it started out with a quote from Dorothy Allison's Two or Three Things I Know For Sure, and I wasn't disappointed.
n WWJD, Stippler grapples with childhood abuse, weight issues, her sexuality, and religion. The abuse poems were hard, though "What We Tell Ourselves" is powerful and difficult and masterful all at once. The weight poems were hard but also, to me, brilliant. The poem "Pass/Back" is a complex web of grappling with food, her body weight, and her body's strength. The line in "Pass/Back" where she says "Boxing make me feel beautiful because muscles contract under my backfat ripples. I'm always the first to offer to carry a heavy load for someone else" speaks to me so much. I'm overweight and my partner, bigger than I am, is so much stronger. As I am, I get annoyed when people insist that someone with my fat can't lift the jug for the water cooler to replace it - but I've seen what my partner can do and I'm so glad Sipple has found that. I've seen that look of joy on my partner's face. It's beautiful. It's empowering.
The Jesus poems are great. I loved them because of who Stippler's Jesus is and because I think they mean that this queer woman who struggled(/struggles) so much has also found peace in a religion that so often causes strife for queer folks. ("Evangelism" is also amazing and I love it and know I don't fully understand it all at the same time.)
n WWJD, Stippler grapples with childhood abuse, weight issues, her sexuality, and religion. The abuse poems were hard, though "What We Tell Ourselves" is powerful and difficult and masterful all at once. The weight poems were hard but also, to me, brilliant. The poem "Pass/Back" is a complex web of grappling with food, her body weight, and her body's strength. The line in "Pass/Back" where she says "Boxing make me feel beautiful because muscles contract under my backfat ripples. I'm always the first to offer to carry a heavy load for someone else" speaks to me so much. I'm overweight and my partner, bigger than I am, is so much stronger. As I am, I get annoyed when people insist that someone with my fat can't lift the jug for the water cooler to replace it - but I've seen what my partner can do and I'm so glad Sipple has found that. I've seen that look of joy on my partner's face. It's beautiful. It's empowering.
The Jesus poems are great. I loved them because of who Stippler's Jesus is and because I think they mean that this queer woman who struggled(/struggles) so much has also found peace in a religion that so often causes strife for queer folks. ("Evangelism" is also amazing and I love it and know I don't fully understand it all at the same time.)