Ode to the Abused Body, by Fallon Sullivan

Fallon Sullivan lives with her dog in Seattle. She is the poetry editor for
Psaltery & Lyre, and was the 2016-2017 poetry editor for the Bellingham
Review. She earned her MFA in Creative Writing from Western
Washington University in 2017.

About the poem:

I wrote “Ode to the Abused Body” as a continuation of Sharon Olds’ tradition of
making the ode subversive just by writing within the form, as she does in her book of
odes. She defies convention under the guise of convention just by writing poetry of
praise to these “ugly” or base elements of humanity. I appreciate the way poetry can
serve as a platform for asserting self-acceptance and dignity, despite X, this unlovely
facet of your human experience.