so wait...in order to write good books one most only write about happy worlds? That doesn't make sense. Inherent in the fantasy worlds of Handmaid's Tale and a Clockwork Oranges are messages about how fucked up those worlds are, and a parellel to some of the things that are in our world today...what makes you think that just because those worlds exist in the imaginations of the authors it means that's somehow it's what they really wanted in their hearts?

I'd also suggest you try being in some horrible situation or another to "suck it up". People always say that and think it makes them so great and so much stronger than the rest of the world, and then in a crisis they understand what it is to be helpless.

About the poem in particular...it's SUPPOSED to be frightening. It's supposed to make us understand what happens to some (not all, but some) women. If I were to write a poem about what rape feels like, it would not be positive. It would be frigtening. It would not be empowering. But it would be true. Something doesn't have to be empowering to be good or true.

I don't think that in every piece written about the negative aspects of the world, the author should have to offer a solution. That's not how artistic writing works. Writing is always talking about something the audience already knows, that's why people like it, because it talks about human experience and feeling.

I don't like the idea that one shouldn't write about scary aspects of the world without having some positive thing involved. There are things that happen in the world that are horrible and scary and are NEVER resolved. People should be able to write about these things.

I think you've got some great ideas about the nature of objectification and it's relation to an inability to connect on a real basis with someone...I guess what I wish is that I somehow had the power to show people that they do not need to seperate a woman's personhood from her looks in order to fantasize about her, that a woman's personhood is just as valuable as her looks.

So instead of "where does the picture stop and the subject start", I want those two things to be intertwined by nature.