because God loves the wasp

By Elisabeth Blair

A memoir in verse, Elisabeth Blair's because God loves the wasp documents two and a half years she spent living in two abusive facilities for "troubled teens" during the late 1990s. The wilderness camp and emotional growth boarding school were modeled on the teachings and tenets of Synanon, a mid-20th-century cult.

 

Alternating between painful clarity and surreal metaphor, the poems grapple with the shock and disorientation of being taken away in the middle of the night by strangers; the bewilderment of navigating expectations in an environment of institutionalized bullying, shunning, and sleep deprivation; and the gravity of the adulthood that follows. 

 

Writing in the second person, Blair confronts the reader, withholding the potential relief of distance. Ripping through a patchwork of disturbing descriptions—of violent staff, isolated and terrified children, and decades of brutal nightmares—she cradles her fierce testimony in sonorous language and striking imagery.

 

The book's tight corralling of traumas takes aim at the notion that inducing fear, despair, and shipwrecked helplessness can rehabilitate a child—the catastrophic doctrine of "tough love." 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Unsolicited Press
• Release date: Aug 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201329518

Book preview

because God loves the wasp

Elisabeth Blair

because God loves the wasp

Copyright © 2022 Elisabeth Blair

All Rights Reserved.

Published by Unsolicited Press.

First Edition.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Attention schools and businesses: for discounted copies on large orders, please contact the publisher directly.

For information contact:

Unsolicited Press

Portland, Oregon

www.unsolicitedpress.com

[e-mail]

619-354-8005

Cover Design: Kathryn Gerhardt

Cover photo provided by Elisabeth Blair

Editor: Jay Kristensen Jr. and S.R. Stewart

Print ISBN: 978-1-956692-28-0

This book documents the author’s experience of living for two and a half years in two abusive facilities for so-called troubled teens: Ascent and Rocky Mountain Academy. Both were part of the CEDU Family of Services, which operated from 1967 to 2005. CEDU’s programs were based on the harmful teachings and tenets of the mid-century cult Synanon. As this book goes to press, offshoots of CEDU as well as many similar programs continue to operate in the US and abroad, largely unregulated. 

Contents

Contents

I.

SIX WEEKS

II.

TWENTY-EIGHT MONTHS

III.

TWENTY-THREE YEARS

Further Resources

Acknowledgments

About the Press

I.

SIX WEEKS

Your blanket is the shell of an egg:

You—

young, raw.

You’re standing on it.

––––––––

The man with the handcuffs is generous.

He gives you time.

He helps.

Gets oxygen to your brain,

makes your breast heave—        a bird

on a stoop

on its back

in shock—

Get in the man’s truck.

A bone tucked in weeds,

you breathe through hair.

A bean, you’re obedient,

plucked from the pod,

shapely