Fat Girl Finishing School

By Rachel Wiley

Rachel Wiley, an author who holds many intersecting identities has written Fat Girl Finishing School as a love letter to her living body. When confronted with fatphobia, racism, misogyny, and shame each poem chooses self love, despite society's expectations of conformity. More than just a book about one single identity Fat Girl Finishing School makes intersectionality dimensional. This is a book steeped in experience, every story is striking, powerful, and unmistakably palpable.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Button Poetry
• Release date: Jun 23, 2020
• ISBN: 9781943735877

Rachel Wiley

Rachel Wiley is a performer, poet, feminist, and fat positive activist from Columbus, Ohio. Rachel has represented Columbus at multiple National Poetry Slam Competitions and was a finalist twice in 2011. She is on staff at Writing Wrongs Poetry Slam and the co-host/co-founder of the Columbus Queer Open Mic. She has toured nationally performing at slam venues, colleges, and festivals. Her work has appeared on Upworthy, The Huffington Post, The Militant Baker, and Everyday Feminism.

Book preview

SCHOOL

PRE-FLIGHT PRAYER OF A FAT GIRL

Pray, let us be thankful for the well-trained smile

of the flight attendant

it may be the only one pointed at us on this day.

Let us not be embarrassed to request the seat

belt extender, but rather rejoice in its being.

Let us pray for a seat that sits not on an aisle

but a window so we may cling to the plane wall

in attempt to make ourselves small

enough. Let us also move our bodies

little as possible, enduring cramp and ache alike

so as not to be a burden unto our seatmate.

And blessed be that seatmate who does neither sigh nor scorn

when our hip sneaks over the line of the

Reviews for Fat Girl Finishing School

[Elizabeth Mellen · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I really enjoyed Nothing Is Okay, despite not being a huge poetry person, and I was really excited to get my hands on this one (it took forever for my libraries to have it!) I loved it. I think the poems speak to deep truths that resonated well with me, and while some spoke to my experience, some did not. The ones that reflected me were exciting to see on the page, and those that didn't felt like they filled in my understanding of things outside myself, which was exciting in a different way. I've seen some of Wiley's poems spoken, and I wish there had been an audiobook version, which I usually like alongside poetry to help my brain with understanding how it was meant to be read.