Bee Reaved (October, 2021)

A couple weeks ago Semiotext(e) sent me an advance copy of Dodie Bellamy's Bee Reaved (October 2021), a collection of recent essays classified under Literature and Criticism. I had read the first essay,"Hoarding as Écriture" (2018), but the second one, "The Violence of the Image", was new to me.

Here's the last section of a very long paragraph from "The Violence of the Image":

"The madness of social media, it too walks within me. I operate in the dangerous and contradictory realm of the in-between. Neither goddess nor heroine, I am an old white feminist, a shrivelled hag envious of my stalker's fertility and youthful beauty. My hair is course and unkempt; my long hanging dugs bounce about like phalluses. I befoul Poetry with my personal essays, which are riddled with superstition, deceit, defective intelligence, lust, and debauchery. I am simultaneously horrific and ridiculous. My politics are so odious I've made pacts wth rapists. Though he's taken the form of a goat, I kiss the abuser's backside; I apologize for him." (34)