I wrote this today in a grant application. I think it’s worth sharing:
According to well-regarded statistics, one in six boys will experience some form of sexual victimization by the time they reach eighteen. That’s an awful lot of boys; but it’s also an awful lot of men, in all walks of life and at all levels of society, whose lives— personal, professional, and political—have been shaped by what we know the trauma of sexual violence can do to a person. The question of what it means for male survivors to return from the alienation of this particular trauma, in other words, goes well beyond a matter of each individual’s personal healing. Especially because we live in a male dominated society, where the professional and political decisions men make can impact the lives of thousands, this question has social, cultural, and political implications as well. I think a poetry exploring that fact is a cultural necessity.