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A gender-inclusive anthology of poetry and prose that addresses the physical and psychological act of being "grabbed," or in any way assaulted.

Table of Contents

FOREWORD By Joyce Maynard
INTRODUCTION By Caridad Moro-Gronlier

I. STRANGERS
What We Did This Year by Freesia McKee
The Truth Is I Never Left You by V. Alexandra Regalado
Sweet Sixteen by Brenda Cardenas
She Said Stop Here by Cynthia White
Found Poem: Chorus to a Girl by Holly Mitchell
Flashbulb Memory by Iris Jamahl Dunkle
Kidnapped Girls by Catherine Gonick
Hitchhiker by Cynthia White
Tuesdays by Yvonne Cassidy
Duplex by Jericho Brown
Sawdust by David Moscovich
Doctor's Office, First Week In This Country by Javier Zamora
Dispatch From My Early 20s by Catherine Esposito Prescott
The Man With The Violin Case by Ruth Behar
Grabbed Villanelle by Catherine Esposito Prescott
Tenement Trick by Vanessa Garcia
Yellow American Women by Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello
Popponesset by Eileen Myles
That Autumn Sunday by Gerry La Fermina
Daughter, They'll Use Even Your Own Gaze To Wound You by Beth Ann Fennelly
Bingo Night For Missing and Exploited Children by MB McLatchy
105 Degrees, South by Lucia Leao
Epistle From The Hospital For Harassment by Jenny Molberg
In Support of Violence by Christopher Soto
Creation Story by Mia Leonin
Angel Heart In Istanbul by Caitlin McDonald
Layover by Jericho Brown
When In Madagascar by Vikki Hendricks
The Opposite of Monsters by Laura Lee Huttenbach
The Worlds Words Make by Zoe Welch
In Guiding Dragon-Wasp Behavior Of Deviant Tentacles Beneath The underskirt Of An Unsuspecting Queen by Catherine Moore
The Shape of Other People by Kelly Sundberg

II. INSTITUTIONS
Where To Bow To The Will of The Majority by Jen Karetnick
Women Have Been Trained by Marge Piercy
The Pallor of Survival by Laure-Anne Bosselaar
Like Judith Slaying Holofernes by Paul Tran
me too by Nicole Callihan
Girl at The Window by Rhonda J. Nelson
Redemption by Barbra Nightingale
Here's My Pussy by Nicole Callihan
How We Lived by Emma Trelles
Sky by Michael Hettich
Questionnaire For Two Pussies by Maureen Seaton and Denise Duhamel
GB2G4 by Michael Mackin O'Mara
Me Too--The Fall of Man by Cynthia Neely
A Brief History in Pink by Michael Mackin O'Mara
One In Four by David McLoghlin
The Peach Orchard by Rita Dove
Recipe For Resistance by Jen Karetnick
Killing by Miriam Bird Greenberg
Testimony by Denise Duhamel
Words That Know the Sun by Yaddyra Perlalta
Body Politic by Bosch Jones
Speaker of the House by Sapphire
It's Just Words, Folks, It's Just Words by Denise Duhamel

III. IMPOSTERS
Grope by Jessica Cuellar
At Least I Didn't Rape You by Caridad Moro
Cocoa Beach by Terry Godbey
Crank Caller by Nikki Moustakki
Sweet Sixteen by Terry Godbey
Summer Job, Circa 1997 by Catherine Esposito Prescott
Puerto Rican Pussy by Ana Menendez
Up For Grabs by Maggie Smith
Me Too Limerick with Drum Beats by Brenda Hillman
What She Told Me by Silvia Curbelo
Pink Underpants by Molly Peacock
El Americano in the Mirror by Richard Blanco
Threshold by Julie Marie Wade and Denise Duhamel
When A White Man Attempts to Steal Your Soul by Hari Zyiad
Said The Poet by Jenny Molberg
NY At International Judo Camp by Kyle Lopez
The Gift Rita by Maria Martinez
Date Grape by Freesia McKee
For A Minute There, I Though We Could've Been Happy by Cathleen Chambless

IV. HOME
Too Old For That, Now by Caridad Moro
Blackout by Elisa Albo
At Any Age by Elisa Albo
A Root by Annie Finch
The Things Ma Says by Bosch Jones
The Lion Head Belt Buckle by Virgilio Suarez
X Marks The Spot by Oliver Brantome
Those Sundays by Christopher Soto
Learning by Gail Carson Levine
Telling by Ivonne Lamazares
Psych Ward by Colleen Sutton
Because What We Do Does Not Die by Ellen Bass
Gender Bender by Jennifer Michael Hecht
In Memoriam, Ann by Debra Dean
Blindsided by Angela Bonavoglia
First Kiss by Lynne Barrett
Cuban Girls Don't Wear Tampons by Caridad Moro
Seven Times Seven by Trish MacEnulty

AFTERWORD By Anita Hill

About the Author

Richard Blanco is the award-winning author of several books. Blanco's poetry collections include City of a Hundred Fires, Directions to the Beach of the Dead, and How to Love a Country. He currently serves as the first-ever Education Ambassador for the Academy of American Poets and is a member of the Obama Foundation's advisory council. Caridad Moro is the award-winning author of Visionware. She is the recipient of an Elizabeth George Foundation Grant and a Florida Individual Artist Fellowship in poetry. Her poems and essays have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net and have appeared in numerous publications and anthologies. She is the Associate Editor for the daily online literary journal, SWWIM Every Day. Nikki Moustaki is the author of the memoir, The Bird Market of Paris. She is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant in poetry, along with many other national writing awards. Her poetry, fiction, and essays have appeared in various literary magazines, anthologies, and textbooks. Elisa Albo is the author of the poetry collection Passage to America and Each Day More, a collection of elegies. Her poems have appeared in many journals and anthologies.

Reviews

"A richly diverse, creative, and gender-inclusive anthology . . . at once deeply shocking and shockingly commonplace, writing candidly, devastatingly, sometimes wittily. With a defining introduction by Joyce Maynard and a resounding afterword by Anita Hill, this is a universal and clarifying call to break the long silence that has imprisoned so many in pain and self-blame. With many contributors writing about being 'grabbed' when they were children or teens, this is a hard-hitting, enlightening, and empowering collection for YAs."
-Booklist, Starred Review