Judging a book by its cover: the micro activism of fat poetry covers

ABSTRACT

Though there has been some critical writing on fat poetics, this is the first article that examines the visual rhetoric of book covers by fat-identifying poets. Positing that covers are a distinct way to intervene against anti-fatness, the article uses Charlotte Cooper’s theory of micro-fat activism and combines esthetic analysis of the covers’ art and design with theoretical, social analysis of the covers’ meanings. This article analyzes Samantha Zighelboim’s cover of The Fat Sonnets through a diet culture, disciplinary lens rooted in eating disorder research, while Sigmund Freud’s theory of The Uncanny helps elucidate the cover’s visual terror. Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity and Sabrina Strings’ research on the racist, Protestant origins of fatphobia are used to analyze Diamond Forde’s cover of Mother Body through an intersectional perspective. Forde’s cover celebrates the fat, Black, female body; reclaims Cooper’s “headless fatty”; and re-writes the Edenic myth. Combined, these covers critique diet culture and present a fat-positive solution to anti-fatness.

KEYWORDS:

• Fat poetics
• fat poetry
• fatphobia
• anti-fatness
• poetry book covers
• book covers
• fat activism
• fat positive
• body positive
• visual rhetoric
• visual activism
• diet culture
• eating disorders
• fat esthetics

Disclosure statement

There is no known conflict of interest to disclose.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Claudia Cortese

Claudia Cortese first book, Wasp Queen (Black Lawrence Press, 2017), won Southern Illinois University’s Devil’s Kitchen Award in Emerging Poetry. Her poems, essays, and articles have appeared in Bitch Magazine, Black Warrior Review, Crazyhorse, Gulf Coast, and The Offing, among many others. Cortese received a 2018 OUTstanding Faculty Ally of the Year certificate from the LGBTQ+ Center at Montclair State University and is the Book Reviews Editor for Muzzle Magazine. She teaches at Montclair State University in the Department of Writing Studies, as well as in the Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies program and the Creative Writing program. In the fall of 2021, Cortese taught the first fat studies class that MSU has offered, entitled Fat Studies: Race, Class, Gender, Queerness.