Poets of SMITTEN Speak: Alison Palmer

Alison Palmer is the author of the poetry chapbook, The Need for Hiding (Dancing Girl Press, 2018). To read an in-depth interview by The Poet’s Billow about the collection visit http://www.thepoetsbillow.org. Alison’s work appears in FIELD, Bear Review, River Styx, Glass, Cream City Review, Salt Hill, Los Angeles Review and elsewhere. Nominated for a Pushcart Prize, Best New Poets 2017, and a finalist for Eyewear Publishing’s Sexton Prize, Alison lives and writes outside Washington, D.C.

• Generally, I’ve not engaged with much lesbian literature, perhaps due to lack of mainstream availability or due to suspicion that lesbian/bi work is more erotic than literary. However, my expectations were shattered after reading Jeanette Winterson’s Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit. Winterson challenges heterosexual traditions through her descriptions of women loving women as they strive to gain independence from the confines of religion and male power…