the literary life INDELIBLE45 POETS & WRITERS^their own questions, traumas, fears,
hopes, and courage.
Oria: I believe that it’s our respon-
sibility as a society in times of crisis
to encourage and receive art in all
the forms it takes, and yet often our
immediate literary response focuses
almost solely on creative nonfiction.
That’s why Indelible features short sto-
ries and poems in addition to essays;
for me this is a form of inclusivity as
well as a way to expand the conversa-
tion beyond what creative nonfiction
invites and allows. And yet this isn’t
something I hear discussed often, so
I wonder if anyone else has thoughts
on this issue.
Schappell: Fiction is a deep dive into
dark waters, and that’s what I wanted
to do here. That’s where I wanted
to go. I couldn’t tell the truth of my
experience without lying about it. I
always find other peoples’ lives much
more interesting than my own.
Melnick: As a poet I really appreci-
ate that this anthology includes po-
etry because there are places poetry
can reach that other genres can’t, and
yet it’s often excluded from projects
like this. I’ve occasionally written a
memory or experience in poetry and
t hen i n prose, a nd each gen re ju st get s
to a different kind of truth, comes at it
from a different angle and place, and
perhaps reaches different readers—or
the same reader differently—because
of it. We need it a l l, is what I’m t r y i ng
to say. And we definitely need poetry;
it’s not shocking that, during these
dire Trump years, the readership for
poetry is way up.
Oria: Speaking of inclusivity. Indelible
features a significant array of voices
and backgrounds; at the time I started
assembling the artistic testimonies
that would become this book, this
felt not just crucial, as it always does,
but urgent, since we were hearing
predominantly from white, straight,
beautiful actresses. How do you feel
about the inclusivity of the #MeToo
conversation in 2019? And would
you say we’ve successfully shifted the
cultural perception that appearance
affects whether or not a woman gets
harassed or abused?Greenidge: I mean, #MeToo was
started by a Black woman activist
and rose from her work with mostly
Black women who had experienced
this. As with all political movements,
it mutated and changed as it reached
different communities. I think the
documentary about R. Kelly has more
recently shifted the conversation back
to including Black women and girls. I
think what is both exhilarating and
frustrating about #MeToo is that we
are all entering this conversation from
different points in our processing of
assault. Some of us are at the “fuck
my abuser, lock him up for life, burn
it all down” point—the stage of “my
pain is unique and unlike anyone else’s
on earth.” This is a necessary part of
hea l i ng. Some of u s w i l l g r apple t here
forever. Some of us get to a point when
we are ready to ask “how does what
happened to me fit i nto la rger soc iet a l
patterns, and how can we punish the
perpetrators?” And still others are at
the point of wondering “what would
restitution and healing and actual so-
cietal change look like? What if we
centered survivors’ healing instead of
just focusing on punishment?”
Certain voices and certain phases,
as performed by certain types of
women who are deemed more sym-
pathetic or their pain more beautiful,
dominated the debate at first. But I
hope, through the works of writ-
ers like Mariame Kaba and also the
movement’s founder, Tarana Burke,
that we can collectively move to the
question of healing for survivors, first
and foremost.Chen: I love Kaitlyn’s thoughts on the
different points of processing. I feel
like this is also a form of diversity—
acknowledging how messy and im-
perfect reckoning with misogyny