Stephanie Rogers

Stephanie Rogers is the author of the poetry collections Plucking the Stinger and Fat Girl Forms, both published by Saturnalia Books. She grew up in Middletown, Ohio, the same steel town portrayed in the book and Netflix drama, Hillbilly Elegy. She was educated at The Ohio State University and the University of Cincinnati, and her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Georgia Review, Ploughshares, Tin House, Poetry Northwest, Shenandoah, New Ohio Review, and elsewhere. She lives outside of Nashville in Lebanon, TN. Source

Fat Girl Triumphal Ode

I’m not your pizza-stuffing

lard ass, not your slight

chance of gaining three pounds from that

accidental crouton in your salad. I’m a pressure

system moving

through a stomach, the sudden

gust wrecking a dumbbell

into mush. I move haloed

and chill, my body a masterpiece, two thighs

muggy as summer, my ass super-

saturated with sunlight screaming, Look

at me. Embrace the bulk

of my breasts, [ ] like the oh

your open mouth makes, pink

as a cyclone on a weather map. I’m a pill

popper with a forecast

of weight gain. Give me my [ ]

seat-belt extender. Take my dark eyes blotting

a white sheet. [ ], I can jog

a block after hitting the blunt. I can rock

the turbulence of my sleeveless arms

better than a plane dipping

in the wind. I’m not a rainbow, yet I swallow

my antidepressants with the same

kind of grace. You, too, have such a pretty face.

Published:

2021

Length:

Regular

Literary Movements:

Contemporary

Anthology Years:

2023

Themes:

Love & Relationships

Poetic Form