Body language Writers on identity, physicality, and making space for ourselves

Book - 2022

"A kaleidoscopic anthology of essays published by Catapult magazine about the stories our bodies tell, and how we move within--and against--expectations of race, gender, health, and ability. Bodies are serious, irreverent, sexy, fragile, strong, political, and inseparable from our experiences and identities as human beings. Pushing the dialogue and confronting monolithic myths, this collection of essays tackles topics like weight, disability, desire, fertility, illness, and the embodied experience of race in deep, challenging ways. Selected from the archives of Catapult magazine, the essays in Body Language affirm and challenge the personal and political conversations around human bodies from the perspectives of thirty writers diverse ...in race, age, gender, size, sexuality, health, ability, geography, and class--a brilliant group probing and speaking their own truths about their bodies and identities, refusing to submit to others' expectations about how their bodies should look, function, and behave. Covering a wide range of experiences--from art modeling as a Black woman to nostalgia for a brutalizing high school sport, from the frightening upheaval of cancer diagnoses to the small beauties of funeral sex--this collection is intelligent, sensitive, and unflinchingly candid. Through the power of personal narratives, as told by writers at all stages of their careers, Body Language reflects the many ways in which we understand and inhabit our bodies. Featuring essays by A.E. Osworth, Andrea Ruggirello, Aricka Foreman, Austin Gilkeson, Bassey Ikpi, Bryan Washington, Callum Angus, Destiny O. Birdsong, Eloghosa Osunde, Forsyth Harmon, Gabrielle Bellot, Haley Houseman, Hannah Walhout, Jenny Tinghui Zhang, Jess Zimmerman, Kaila Philo, Karissa Chen, Kayla Whaley, Maggie Tokuda-Hall, Marcos Gonsalez, Marisa Crane, Melissa Hung, Natalie Lima, Nina Riggs, Rachel Charlene Lewis, Ross Showalter, s.e. smith, Sarah McEachern, Taylor Harris, and Toni Jensen."--provided by publisher.

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  • Introduction
  • The Crematorium
  • When Your Body Is the Lesson
  • (Don't) Fear the Feeding Tube
  • View from the Football Field; or, What Happens When the Game Is Over
  • Smother Me
  • Don't Let It Bury You
  • Writing My Truth as a Deaf Queer Writer
  • A Variant of Unknown Significance
  • On the Camino de Santiago
  • In Certain Contexts, Out of Certain Mouths
  • Cut Knuckles
  • Surviving Karen Medicine
  • What I Did for the Chance to Have a Baby Someday
  • The Small Beauty of Funeral Sex
  • The Year of Breath
  • Papi Chulo Philosophies
  • Little Pink Feet
  • Counting to Ten Without Numbers
  • In Praise of Fast Girls Who Just Want to Dance
  • Weathering Wyoming
  • Attack of the Six-Foot Woman
  • The Privilege of Having Soft Hands
  • Teshima
  • In Utero, in a Pandemic
  • To Swim Is to Endure
  • The Climate of Gender
  • Mapping My Body with Sewing Patterns
  • Women in the Fracklands
  • Connecting the Dots
  • It Doesn't Hurt, It Hurts All the Time
  • Acknowledgments
  • About the Contributors
  • About the Editors
Review by Booklist Review

Editors Chung (All You Can Ever Know, 2018) and Ortile (The Groom Will Keep His Name, 2020) present 30 essays that reveal how diverse bodies "move within (and against) expectations of race, gender, health, and ability." Gabrielle Bellot, a Black trans woman, impressively parallels Black violence and scuba diving in "The Year of Breath," while her suggestion of turning Scheherazade into a verb, "meaning to tell stories to survive," becomes a theme for the entire collection. Bodies are vessels of empowerment despite adversity. Natalie Lima is a Big Beautiful Woman in "Smother Me." Andrea Ruggirello appreciates an atheist miracle in "On the Camino de Santiago." Destiny O. Birdsong finds loopholes in "Surviving Karen Medicine." Hannah Walhout stands (very) tall in "Attack of the Six-Foot Woman." Wanting children highlights Karissa Chen's "What I Did for the Chance to Have a Baby Someday," Maggie Tokuda-Hall's "Little Pink Feet," and Marisa Crane's "In Utero, In a Pandemic." Existing children cause understandable concern in Taylor Harris' "A Variant of Unknown Significance" and Austin Gilkeson's "Teshima." Toni Jensen confronts violence against BIPOC women in "Women in the Fracklands;" survivor Eloghosa Osunde won't play dead in "Don't Let It Bury You." These smart, affecting, and vulnerable essays, chronicling a vast range of experiences, inspire and illuminate.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Originally published in Catapult magazine, these lyrical and incisive essays cover a wide range of topics related to the human body, including birth, death, race, gender, size, disability, and fertility. In "The Crematorium," Nina Riggs compares witnessing her mother's cremation while undergoing her own cancer treatment to "some kind of morbid test drive." Elsewhere, Destiny O. Birdsong offers a harrowing account of trying to find relief for her chronic illness within a medical system that misunderstands Black women and their pain; Kayla Whaley recounts how she learned to accept her feeding tube after losing the ability to swallow solid food; and A.E. Osworth discusses "the thrill of thirst trapping" as a trans person: "When I chopped my tits off, I could finally look in a mirror. Never before have I wanted a photographic record of what I saw there." In "Little Pink Feet," Maggie Tokuda-Hall recalls how she sought solace in baking macarons after undergoing painful fertility treatments and a miscarriage, while Gabrielle Bellot's "The Year of Breath" reflects on the Covid-19 pandemic and "the systematic eradication of Black and brown bodies like my own by ravenously racist cops." Marked by the diversity of its contributor's perspectives and the vibrancy of their prose, this anthology shines. (July)

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Review by Library Journal Review

This book of essays all about how society sees bodies of all kinds comes from the archives of Catapult magazine. Former Catapult editor Chung and current executive editor Ortile selected works by 30 authors about their bodies and how they interact with the bodies of others. Destiny O. Birdsong's "Karen Medicine" discusses the lack of understanding of Black female bodies in today's medical world as she seeks to find a better treatment and diagnosis for her autoimmune disorder. "Counting to Ten Without Numbers" is all about how Sarah McEachern copes with a particular form of learning disability, dyscalculia, which makes numbers meaningless to her. Readers will also learn about writers' experiences of transitioning, eating disorders, and medical challenges. Each of the essays speaks eloquently about the particular experience of its author, but readers may also recognize something of themselves in the stories. VERDICT Many readers will be able to identify with at least one of the essays in this wide-ranging collection. Recommended for public libraries and readers who are looking for body positivity resources.--Kristen Stewart

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