The Queen of Queens - (VIA Folios) by Jennifer Martelli (Paperback)

About the Book

"In this tenacious collection of poems, the drugs, pop music, rocket crash, and Martelli's "queens"-from Geraldine Ferraro to Madonna, Nancy Pelosi to Molly Ringwald-embody the struggle with and resistance against gender oppression, political sexism, and ongoing threats to reproductive rights, while reminding us of the power of one strong woman"--

Book Synopsis

In this tenacious collection of poems, the drugs, pop music, rocket crash, and Martelli's "queens"--from Geraldine Ferraro to Madonna, Nancy Pelosi to Molly Ringwald--embody the struggle with and resistance against gender oppression, political sexism, and ongoing threats to reproductive rights, while reminding us of the power of one strong woman.

Review Quotes

As its intriguing title suggests, The Queen of Queens places royalty alongside the commonplace, parallels contemporary and retrospective, juxtaposes fine with rough. In these unswerving poems, the drugs, pop music, and rocket crash that defined the 80's eerily evoke our era of Trump. The book's speaker laments, "I fear no one / will ever hear me," and Martelli's "queens"-from Geraldine Ferraro to Madonna, Nancy Pelosi to Molly Ringwald-embody the collection's resistance against gender oppression, political sexism, and ongoing threats to reproductive rights, while reminding us that one strong woman can lift us all. This is a powerful account of past and present, strung like the book's frequently recurring pearls-symbol of femininity but also proof that a source of struggle can generate uncommon beauty. I will return to these translucent poems again and again.

Jennifer Militello, author of The Pact

These poems are both beautiful and brutal, artful and angry, finely-crafted and fierce. Each poem proves the personal is political and that the same concerns about equity for women that were prevalent forty years ago are just as crucial today. In a magical sleight of hand, The Queen of Queens captures both optimism and disappointment, the progress that has been made and the ways we have plateaued. Martelli has answered her own question from "Self-Portrait as the Half-Dead Cherry Tree Outside the Bedroom Window" -"how do we survive sadness?" Unafraid to grapple with difficult topics, including misogynist rhetoric from other women, Martelli writes about it all: the secrets and mistakes, all the false hopes and struggles. She makes bold art from history and we, her readers, are the wiser for it.

Jennifer Franklin, author of No Small Gift