by Jessica Colleen McDermott
SMITTEN This Is What Love Looks Like; Poetry by Women for Women, compiled and printed by Indie Blu(e) Publishing, is a powerhouse anthology that showcases the voices of women who love women. It is clear from the variety and quantity of poetry and art combined in this work that the subjects found here are a necessity to share and read. Too often female love is overlooked, erased, or written off as a phase or erotica, but in SMITTEN, these outdated clichés and stereotypes are immediately knocked out and replaced by complex stories of love and loss – feelings we’ve all had when falling in or out of love. What makes these poems spectacular is not only their sincerity and breadth but also their courage to reclaim and rewrite narratives too often controlled by heteronormativity and men.
As with most good poetry, the poems in SMITTEN transform the usual and mundane into powerful and holy subjects. Whether it is eating spaghetti on the floor of an “unheated flat,” cutting and eating a pomegranate for the first time, patching holes in the walls of an apartment, or walking through timothy-grass, life’s too often overlooked moments become the poems themselves, and they are better for it.
Juxtaposed between poems that exude humor and the unnamable feeling of first loves are also poems that touch on the complexity of women loving women in a society that devalues it. The first poem of the anthology is heart wrenching in its honesty and ability to discuss this topic in a surprising meditation on the word lesbian itself. Some of the lines read,
Lesbian tastes predatory,
like a lion stalking its prey,
hiding in the grasses,
hiding in casual conversations with friends,
hiding in browser histories.
Lesbian is a monster.
Am I the monster?
Because oh,
oh god,
do I want that word to feel delicious.Other poems also depict the anxieties and complexities of discussing and sharing this identity. In one of my favorite poems, the narrator shows up at a grandparent’s door four years after being told not to visit. Luckily, she is invited inside and by the end, she feels she is “back in the family.”
For anyone who is part of the LGBTQ community, these poems, and others like it in the text, feel freeing in their ability to capture what we’ve all felt about our identities as queer people. Its focus on women also allows us to appreciate the unique identity of women who love women. As stated in the anthology’s acknowledgements, “It is important to speak about the unique differences and beauty of women who love women,” and these poems meet and surpass this mission.
SMITTEN This Is What Love Looks Like; Poetry by Women for Women will be available for purchase both in bookstores and online.
Author contact: jess.colleen.mcd@gmail.com