Don’t Be Another Girl by B.M. Owens

$17.99

 

Don’t Be Another Girl is a feminist reckoning and rallying cry from a thrilling new voice in the field. B.M. Owens chronicles personal history and public zeitgeist in these Promethean poems, borrowing fire from touchstone poets like Sharon Olds, Lucille Clifton, and Rachel McKibbens, then setting each page ablaze for a new generation of allies and advocates. In Owens’ own words, ‘my fire fuels/ forges/ floats up/ through my spine/ out of my mouth/ my voice scorching/ anyone who’d possess/ my words/ me.’ Handle carefully and gratefully. This book is hot.

–Julie Marie Wade, author of Skirted and When I Was Straight

 

B.M. Owens’ debut chapbook Don’t Be Another Girl perfectly captures what it is like to be female in this very fraught cultural moment. With pop culture icons (like Harley Quinn) and poetry foremothers (like Sharon Olds), Owens reverses the curse of hereditary and takes charge of her identity. Exquisite imagery, self-love and clear politics (despite “Your poems might make men uncomfortable,” said a man) inform these first-rate feminist poems.

–Denise Duhamel

 

 

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Don’t Be Another Girl

by B.M. Owens

Paper

$15.99  List: $17.99

979-8-88838-429-9

2024

DON’T BE ANOTHER GIRL includes poems that tackle themes of introductory feminism, familial relationships, abuse, and mental illness. These free-verse and prose poems use pop culture, politics, and elements of nature as vehicles to mirror the violence of the western white patriarchy—following the journey of a budding feminist, these poems attempt to set the patriarchy ablaze. Realizing that fire consumes everything, DON’T BE ANOTHER GIRL aims to confront internalized sexism and challenges gender expectations imposed by family, society, religion, and the government. Under the influences of Sharon Olds, Rachel McKibbens, Jaquira Díaz, Lucille Clifton, Jan Beatty, and Audre Lorde, these poems attempt to call into question the sexist ideals of a male-dominated society, while striving for sisterhood and self-love. DON’T BE ANOTHER GIRL is the first spark of a feminist that doesn’t always get it right, but is trying to ground themselves after being uprooted.

B.M. Owens received her MFA in poetry from Florida International University. Her work has been published in Salamander, Small Orange Journal, Silk Road Review, among others. Owens was a finalist for the 2022 Academy of American Poets Prize and has been nominated for both Best New Poets and the Pushcart Prize. Her debut chapbook, “Don’t Be Another Girl,” was a semi-finalist in the 2022 New Women’s Voices Chapbook Competition for Finishing Line Press.

 

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