What Was Inserted

“I do not remember
I gave you
Power
to consent,
that any
thing
should be omitted, and much less
that any
thing
should be inserted.”
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaSo wrote Lemuel Gulliver in his prefatory letter.
I was not given
power
to consent,
and what was
inserted
should not have been.

***

Emily Bowles started her career as a visiting professor of English and Women’s Studies. She published widely on Margaret Cavendish, Aphra Behn, Henry Fielding, Frances Brooke, and Eliza Lucas Pinckney before leaving academic work and turning to a career in as a writer. Her poems look at workplace sexism, systemic oppression, the stigma surrounding mental illness, and motherhood after divorce.