Here is "Body in the Mirror"
"...it took participation in grassroots feminism and reading great poets (for me, Gertrude Stein and Walt Whitman) before I could find my belly with my hands and write that it was soft to the touch."
It is the first in a series of four essays that will be appearing each Monday at the Poets&Writers website. This one is about a writing exercise that helps writers be more connected to the bodies in their work. It's also a story about how I started writing the essays and poems in Belly Songs: in celebration of fat women.