Judging a book by its cover: the micro activism of fat poetry covers

ABSTRACT Though there has been some critical writing on fat poetics, this is the first article that examines the visual rhetoric of book covers by fat-identifying poets. Positing that covers are a distinct way to intervene against anti-fatness, the article uses Charlotte Cooper’s theory of micro-fat activism and combines esthetic analysis of the covers’ art and design with theoretical, social analysis of the covers’ meanings. This article analyzes Samantha Zighelboim’s cover of The Fat Sonnets through a diet culture, disciplinary lens rooted in eating disorder research, while Sigmund Freud’s theory of The Uncanny helps elucidate the cover’s visual terror. Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity and Sabrina Strings’ research on the racist, Protestant origins of fatphobia are used to analyze Diamond Forde’s cover of Mother Body through an intersectional perspective. Forde’s cover celebrates the fat, Black, female body; reclaims Cooper’s “headless fatty”; and re-writes the Edenic myth. Combined, these covers critique diet culture and present a fat-positive solution to anti-fatness.